Mooring Types

Our description of the most common mooring types

Swing or Buoy mooring

A Swing mooring is made up of an anchorage set deep into the sea bed or bottom of the waterway with a rope, cable, or chain running to a float on the surface. The float allows a vessel to locate and connect to the anchorage. These anchors are known as swing moorings because a vessel attached to this kind of mooring swings in a circle when the direction of wind or tide changes.

Pile mooring

Pile moorings are poles driven into the sea bed or bottom of the waterway with their tops above the water. Vessels then tie mooring lines to two or four piles to fix their position between those piles.

Stern on mooring

The vessel is secured by lines at the stern to the quay wall or bank side. The bow is held in position by attachment to a permanent anchorage or the vessel’s own anchor.

Fore and Aft mooring

The boat is tethered at the bow and the stern to a buoy mooring preventing the vessel from swinging with the ebb and flow of the tide.

Trot mooring

A trot mooring is one where the boat is secured to buoys fore and aft away from the harbour/ quay or bankside. The buoys are secured by chains to the river bed and access to the vessel is usually by dinghy. Vessels are usually compactly moored and designed for smaller craft.

Pontoon mooring

A pontoon is a buoyant platform providing walking access to the vessel secured alongside.

Pier mooring

A structure fixed to the bottom of the waterway leading out from the shore into a body of water, in particular a platform supported on pillars or girders, used as a landing stage for boats.

Jetty mooring

A landing stage or small pier whether floating or fixed to the bottom of the waterway at which boats can dock or be moored.

Running mooring

The vessel is secured between two fixed points and on pulleys. The pulleys are used to haul the vessel close to the shore where the vessel remains secured afloat.

Marina Berth

A designated space within a secure and sheltered mooring complex consisting of pontoons attached to solid structures such as harbour or port walls. Access to marina berths is usually via locked walkways.