mooring balls

Let's address the dangers of mooring balls

Danger Broken Morring Balls   Danger Broken Morring Balls
There are several types of moorings but as you can see their maintenance status can vary.

1) Government Agency mandated  moorings
these can be maintained by the government agency - state or municipality - or outsourced to a vendor so in countries where moorings are a mandate to use in a particular anchorage due to conservation or environment or safety concerns you may be forced to use them- the question is what happens if it breaks ?
Ideally cities and port districts also have established mooring maintenance requirements. The schedule to lift, inspect and (possibly) repair moorings vary from harbor to harbor, with many requiring renewal annually or every other year.

Moorng Diagram
Mooring System Diagram -  many points of failure - starting with what materials are used - here is one in the BVI's

mooring in st thomas2) Private moorings or mooring fields
run maintained or operated by a marina or commercial entity -
Most likely they are not the same and the breaking strength will vary based on thickness weight and overall maintenance - the question is what happens if it breaks ? Who pays / what it is warranted for and since you are paying who actually warrants it ?

 

Bad Mooring3) Individual locals moorings -   small dive shop operators - fisherman - local guys who are not necessarily ensured -  endorsed by the government agency to have them and are selling them to you anyhow - the question is what happens if it breaks ?

 

Mooring
Material  Fatigue

Materieal Fatigue

 

4) or bring your own mooring -
think YOUR ANCHOR - you set it you know it you add scope you sleep well

by atlanticposse

CALIMA

 African winds from SW – SE

A Calima wind, which brings sand from the Sahara Desert  is unpredictable so it can happen any time of the year, but it usually appears in the winter season between December and March.. It can last from 3 to 5 days or even up to a week and it is very dense, causing low visibility and extreme amounts of dust entering everywhere.

Calima Winds

The word Calima itself originates from the Spanish word for “haze”. This haze is a layer of dust and sand brought on high winds originating from Africa. On occasion weather fronts in the south-west of the Canary Islands can increase wind-speeds even more. In these cases the Calima will escalate bringing very high temperatures with it, and is able to carry dust high above the Atlantic covering hundreds of thousands of square miles with a dense cloud of Saharan sand, sometimes  reaching the Caribbean.

DETAILS from 2020 Yacht Maya >>

February 2020 – Calima – Yacht Maya
After a pleasant crossing to Tenerife we settled in to Marina Del Sur to see what the coming wind was going to do. You could see the sky visibly darkening to an orangey-red colour and, as the wind increased, the visibility decreased.

Sandstorm  High Winds

 

One measure of air pollution is the amount of coarse particulate matter – or PM10 – in the air close to the Earth’s surface, another is aerosol optical depth (AOD) which is a measure of how much direct sunlight is blocked by dust and haze in the atmosphere. CAMS has been tracking both and, as confirmed by Aeronet observations, the CAMS forecasts of total AOD represented the event very well, including the longer-range transport.

In the Canary Islands, air quality was severely degraded for several days as a result of the dust storms, with high measured PM10 values.

Haze

by atlanticposse

Aggressive Killer Whales Batter Sailboats Off Spain And

ORCAS

CHECK THE ORCA ENCOUNTER MAP

https://www.theca.org.uk/orcas/reports

https://www.theca.org.uk/orcas/reports

SUMMARY:  DROPS SAILS - TURN ENGINE ON - GO IN REVERSE

So dear friends,
it caught me last night around 7pm just before Gibraltar. About 3 nm off Barbete a group of Orcas went onto my boat. There were about 10 animals, big and young. First they ripped the little rudder off the wind flag control, then the main rudder was cut off in 2 parts. Some seemed to be playing with the parts floating in the water as if trying to balance the part on the head. After about 10 minutes, the parts in the water were uninteresting and they were attacking my boat from all sides. First it was spinning in a circle, then they swam against the hull and kiel with a crazy surge. With every hit, it cracked like the laminate was breaking. My boat is an old Kevlar/epoxy race boat in Sandwich build, the kiel is extremely massive screwed with the cage inside. I had the feeling that they were trying to separate the kiel from the hull as well. I held on to the mast the whole time and sent out an SOS over the satellite phone and radio right at the beginning. It took 50 minutes then the sea rescue was there. Their use was extremely professional. They circled the boat twice and fixed sideways. Helped me onto her boat and I was safe. Now we waited about another 10 minutes, the captain said he could not leave until the Orcas were gone. And actually out the window I watched my boat take more blows. It was the most terrifying experience I've ever had, yes I was absolutely scared to death. Can't imagine when you have to go into the water and these animals are around you. The whole attack lasted less than an hour. On the way to the harbor, the captain said that they had rescued a cat yesterday, he is now in front of me, same problem. Last year May-August they would have saved about 15 boats in each month, partly 8 in a week.
I think my boat will be a total damage because the laminate will have major delamination damage. But here in the harbor the lift is broken right now and they believe it will take months until it is repaired. So wait and pay 44.44 every day.
My dream of the big round has come to an end here, I can't say at the moment if I'll ever be able to move a sailboat on the sea again with calm thoughts.

I wish you all the best and that you never experience anything like this.

POSTED BY

Orcas destroy rudder of the coast of spain

by atlanticposse

SCHEDULE

WE DO NOT SAIL ON A SCHEDULE – WE NEVER HAVE and WE NEVER WILL, NEVER
SCHEDULES KILL SAILORS & SINK VESSELS AND ARE KNOWN AS THE MOST DANGEROUS ITEM ON  A YACHT
WE SAIL WHEN THE WEATHER IS GOOD AND WE CROSS WHEN THERE IS A GOOD WEATHER WINDOW

The best time to cross the Atlantic to the Caribbean  is between November and February. The Mid-Atlantic tradewinds – Easterly winds that travel continuously from east to west – are stable and (usually) unaffected by hurricanes at this time of year.

by atlanticposse