A Single Point Mooring (SPM) is a mooring for one vessel in a harbor alone – or with other moorings – typically referred to as a mooring field. A SPM is a semi-permanent anchor for a specific vessel, or a transient mooring for short stays of different vessels.
The first step in creating a proposal is to understand the vessel length and weight, wave action, bottom type, tide variation, fetch (distance of open water), etc. The needed information is gathered via the Elastic Mooring Systems Form.
The basic mooring consists of an anchor, a device (competitors use chain, we use an elastic) used to connect the anchor to a buoy, a buoy that floats to provide a way to see and retrieve the mooring when returning, and one or more lines (pendant) from the buoy to connect to the vessel.
A Hazelett Marine SPM is different as it uses an elastic as part of the connection of the anchor to the buoy. To construct a Hazelett SPM, the following basic parts are used:
1) Shackle – A single Shackle is used to connect the anchor to one end of an elastic. There are several different types of shackles available. These consist of galvanized steel (as shown) and stainless steel of different widths to accommodate multiple elastic systems.
2) Elastic Rode – This is the main part of the Hazelett Marine mooring system. It comes in different sizes and multiple ones can be stacked side by side to accommodate different conditions. These are called single, double, triple, and quad.
3) Trawl Float – This is a hard plastic float used to keep the elastic from the sea floor. There are two sizes, 11” diameter and 8” diameter. Two are used for each mooring, tied thru a hole in the bottom end of the elastic with Float Line.
4) Uniline – Uniline is a specific type of 5/8 diameter rope used to connect the elastic to the buoy. Uniline is a very tough polyester core dielectric cable that is overbraided with a polyester sleeve, saturated with rubber, and then cured in an oven.
5) Wire Rope Clamp – The clamp is a mechanical device used to connect the bitter end with the bight when an eye is formed. Uniline is very difficult to splice, so two clamps are used to make an eye around the swivel. These two clamps are not visible in a salt water mooring because they are inside the spar buoy.
6) Chafe Sleeve – The Chafe sleeve is essentially a cover over the Uniline to protect it from abrasion inside the Spar Buoy.
7) Spar Buoy – The Spar Buoy is a large plastic buoy used to hold the mooring on top of the water for retrieval. This buoy is for salt water, and is specifically made for Hazelett Marine. It is plastic with a hole through the center for the Uniline, and has concrete inside to make it float to a specific height. Blue tape is usually wrapped around to make it visible.
8) Spar Buoy Boot – This is a plastic sleeve that is placed on top of the spar buoy to hold the large swivel and keep it from damaging the vessel. The Boot is specifically made for Hazelett Marine. It is held in place with a large worm drive clamp
9) Hose Worm Drive Clamp – This hose clamp is used to hold the Boot onto the Buoy.
10) Jaw & Eye Swivel – The swivel is used to keep a swinging vessel from tangling around a mooring. Hazelett Marine provides Eye & Eye, Jaw & Eye, and Jaw & Jaw swivels. The eye refers to a closed end that one splices a line around. The Jaw has a threaded pin that can be removed to connect a previously spliced line.
11) Pendant – A Pendant connects the buoy to the vessel. These are custom made by Hazelett.