Mobey Dick wrote:

isnt the standard technique (for a ball/mooring bouy of a reasonable
size) to drop a loop of line over it , pull in and cleat off? This
holds you on the ball while you thread the eye on the top. Done it
many times

I don't know how "standard" this is, but it would probably work well in many
cases.

I would not however venture to say that it would work in _all_ cases. In
the instance I cited (2 plus meters off the water in a borrowed 46 foot
motorsailer with none of my own gear on board, an inexperienced person at
the helm, a "yachtsman's gale" whooping up, no indication that the mooring
had essentially been disabled at that time of the year, etc., etc.), I am
just not 100% sure.

I don't really think, for the record, that any individual could have been
100% certain, but that's probably attributable to the narrow circles I
travel in.

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://home.comcast.net/~kerrydeare