Meet Ann. No, I don’t mean the one that lives on the boat in front of me.
My Ann
No, I have my own Ann. And she is absolutely essential when I have to moor up. Especially when mooring up on pins. Because in that situation I should have two hands to hold the boat steady, and two hands to hammer the pins in.
With the help of Mick I manage to tie a pin to a short, extra middle line (managing a proper eye splice).
When mooring up on pins, I step off the boat with the normal middle line and the hammer, pick up Ann, and with one hand holding the extra middle line I hammer the pin in with my other hand.
Once Ann is hammered in, I have plenty of time to hammer in the proper mooring pins.
Because WRT is so heavy it takes a while before she gets momentum, so when she tries to take off, I immediately put her back where I want her.
Pretty windy
It works perfect, even in a pretty strong wind. Although I must confess so far the wind never blew WRT off the towpath…