How not to pick up a mooring ...

I had 'Raasay' alongside the quay in Findhorn for a couple of days of 'harbour-caravanning', and took it back across to the mooring just before high tide today.

An hour before high tide, there is still a strong tidal current in 'D' section, and the wind from the SW was not quite against it, but crossing it steeply. I could see 'Astrea' on the next mooring along being pushed up tide by the wind, but still lying to the tide. Picking up the mooring on my own was going to take a couple of attempts.

I worked out a mode of approach after some trial and error, and was creeping across the tide, pointing down wind, and letting the boat drift towards the mooring. It's always tricky to time the jump from the helm to the boat hook and I left it about a second too long. By the time I got to the pickup bouy it was being dragged under the boat. 'First attempt...' I thought, and waited for it to come out the other side.

It didn't. It snagged on something under the boat and hung on tight.

The engine was running but I daren't engage the prop, so I just let things take their course to see how the boat would lie before I tried to figure out what had happened. I tried the tiller and found it almost impossible to move, so reckoned the bouy must be jammed in the rudder somehow. I confirmed this by taking a couple of pictures over the side (it's handy to have a waterproof camera ...), in which I could see the buoy stuck near the tip of the rudder - the rope was between the rudder and the base of the skeg (which holds the bottom rudder bearing).

I waited a little to see if it would just come unstuck, and wondered what to do. I didn't want to cut the rope, but it was beginning to seem unavoidable. I taped a knife to the boathook, and got to work.

It was very awkward - every time the knife slipped off the rope I had to start again, because the rope was so far under the water I couldn't see where I was cutting. I could feel the serrated blade making some kind of progress, though.

After five or ten minutes, the bouy suddenly popped out of where it had lodged itself and floated free - still attached to the pick up rope, which was now severely damaged by my attempts to cut through it.

Later, I thought more carefully about how the lower rudder bearing on the Rival worked, and realised that the only way the rope could get stuck was straight up between the bearing support and the bottom of the rudder. A gentle push down - as supplied by someone trying to cut the rope, for instance - was all it would have taken to free it.

I brought the boat round again, and almost by luck found myself approaching the pickup buoy at a hopeful angle. I motored gently towards it, grabbed the boat hook, and pulled in on board. I had just assessed the damage - two strands cut through and a serious start on the third - when I realised that I'd left the prop engaged, and the buoy was being dragged out of my hands.

I managed to lodge it around a shroud, dive into the cockpit to disengage the prop, and get back to it before the remaining strand snapped or it worked itself free.

The remainder of the process was, as usual, still a bit fraught. It's hard to get the mooring strop on board through Raasay's rather tight bow roller arrangement, so I have winch it. It was nice to get on with the normal difficulties, though, and get the boat secured.

I won't be so casual about letting the mooring go under the boat in future. And, if it does, and the pickup buoy gets stuck in the rudder, I won't go straight for the most desperate option ...

Now the tide has turned, the boat is lying quietly to the dropping wind and the ebb. Maybe time for a cup of tea.