Mooring Tips: a Quick and Secure Knot

Have you reached your berth in Genoa, mooring up, and the situation requires timing and speed? For instance, when you need to quickly secure the line to the bollard to grab another line being thrown from the boat, or to secure a spring line around the bollard. Therefore, you need to tie a mooring knot quickly, one that’s secure, even if temporary – here’s how.

In this case, you need to create a clove hitch horizontally. It’s the same knot we use to secure fenders to the guardrails or anything else that exerts tension or weight on the knot.

In the demonstration images, the knot is tied around a winch, but naturally, it should be tied around a mooring bollard.

To begin, you need to take the working end, which is the free end of the line, and pass it under the standing part, which is the part coming from the boat.

Then, using the working end again, make a loop larger than the size of the bollard (in our case, the winch) by folding the line back on itself.

Now you can tighten the knot. The line’s tension ensures it holds. This way, we’ve quickly created a mooring knot that allows us to focus on other tasks. Once the boat is secured and you’re certain of the final mooring position, you can replace this knot with a bowline and rest easy for the night.

However, if we’re not the ones receiving the line on the dock but need to jump from the boat with the line in hand, we can prepare the clove hitch at the size needed to pass around the bollard. Proceed by passing the working end first over the standing part, creating the first loop, and then under to create the second loop as shown in the photo above.

Finally, as shown in the photo, overlap the first loop over the second. We have now prepared the clove hitch this way, allowing us to jump onto the dock and slip it around the bollard, tightening it in just moments.