If you like it put a ring on it
Jon Sharp devises an easy marina mooring pick-up using a hoop on a pole
We’ve devised a simple method for picking up lines on our finger pontoon mooring that may be of interest to others.
It consists of a pole made of 20mm plastic pipe that has a rowlock attached at the top. The base is attached to an angle bracket with a couple of bolts (a short length of dowel is first inserted in the tube with the bolt holes drilled through it, to stop the tube being crushed).
A largish ring (made of plywood in our case) hangs in the rowlock and is attached by a medium-thickness braided line to a heavier line attached to the end cleat on the finger pontoon.
As the boat approaches the hoop is caught by the boathook from the foredeck and the line pulled-in to secure the heavier line over our midships cleat.
This acts as a backspring and keeps us away from the nearest danger–the bow and the main pontoon. The normal bow line can then be taken ashore and the helmsman can take the stern line.
As the finger pontoon is shorter than the boat, having this spring in place stops the bow moving forward as the stern is pulled in. We later replaced the pick-up spring with a larger spring but you could just use the same rope.
We did try attaching the line at both ends of the pontoon to act as a both-way spring and to help pulling-in if being blown off the pontoon but in practice, for us, this was harder to attach to the cleat and often made the bow veer out if pulled too enthusiastically. Going ahead gently on the spring with starboard wheel should pull the boat in if being blown off.
You could go further and have the bow and stern lines set up the same way (as I’ve seen on some small commercial vessels), but this system works very well and seems enough for us.