MOORING LINE HOLDER

Abstract

A mooring line holder for holding a mooring line at a dock in a raised position for ease of access to the mooring line from the deck of a yacht, cruiser or other watercraft, the mooring line holder having a foot by which it is attached to the dock and an upright pole or post rising from the foot and having a pair of support arms extending laterally from the pole or post at or near the upper end of the pole or post, each support arm having a respective detent/cradle for said mooring line, the detents being spaced apart so that a loop of the mooring line may be held spread open between them, thereby enabling a boat hook or other lengthy tool to be used to reach between the detents and hook the open loop of mooring line.

Claims

1. A mooring line holder for holding a mooring line at a dock in a raised position for ease of access to the mooring line from a yacht, cruiser or other watercraft, the mooring line holder comprising: a) a foot by which it is attached to the dock; and b) an upright pole or post rising from the foot to an upper end; c) a pair of support arms that extend laterally from the pole or post at or near the upper end of the pole or post, wherein each support arm has a respective detent for said mooring line, the detents being spaced apart so that a loop of the mooring line may be held spread open between them, thereby enabling a boat hook or other lengthy tool to be used to reach between the detents and hook the open loop of mooring line.

2. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 1, wherein each detent is an open-topped cradle or hook to receive said mooring line therein and passing therethrough.

3. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 1, wherein each detent projects upwardly from the respective arm.

4. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 1, wherein the pair of support arms are bifurcated from the upright pole or post.

5. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 1, wherein the pair of support arms collectively define a V or U shape formation at the top of the upright pole or post.

6. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 5, wherein the V or U shape formation is plane parallel or co-planar with the pole or post.

7. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 6, wherein the detents are at the upper extremities of the V or U shape formation.

8. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 1, wherein the detents are open-topped cradles that are substantially U-shaped, with vertical sides that do not converge at the open top of the cradle.

9. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 1, wherein the mooring line holder has a modular construction, the support arms and uppermost extremity of the pole or post being molded or cast as a head module and a main length of the pole or post being formed separately and assembled together with it.

10. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 9, wherein the head module couples onto the top of the main length of the pole by a collar.

11. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 1, wherein the pole or post comprises two or more lengths that can be telescoped to lengthen or shorten the pole or post.

12. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 1, wherein a basal/lowermost end of the pole or post has a spring to allow deflection of the pole or post if knocked.

13. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 12, wherein the spring is a coil spring wrapped around the basal/lowermost end of the pole or post.

14. The mooring line holder as claimed in claim 13, wherein the spring has a looped basal projection at its lowermost end that functions as the foot/base plate of the pole or post and allows a screw, bolt or the like fastening means to be passed through it and thereby used to anchor the mooring line holder onto the dock

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

[0011] The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention, and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the invention.

[0012] FIG. 1 is a front elevation view of a conventional, “Prior Art”, mooring line holder, showing the single support cradle at the top of the upright pole and the loop or coil of the mooring line hanging slack down against the pole.

[0013] A preferred embodiment of the present invention will now be more particularly described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

[0014] FIG. 2 is a front elevation view of the preferred embodiment of the mooring line holder of the present invention;

[0015] FIG. 3 is a further front elevation view of the preferred embodiment of the mooring line holder of the present invention in use, showing a loop of mooring line held open between the spaced apart support arms in an open loop in a substantially vertical plane;

[0016] FIG. 4 is a front elevation view of a variant of the mooring line holder of the present invention; and

[0017] FIG. 5 is a plan view of the foot of the mooring line holder as viewed in the direction V-V in FIG. 4.

[0018] Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views of the figures. The figures represent an illustration of some of the embodiments of the present invention and are not to be construed as limiting the scope of the invention in any manner. Further, the figures are not necessarily to scale, some features may be exaggerated to show details of particular components. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to variously employ the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE ILLUSTRATED EMBODIMENTS

[0019] As used herein, the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,” “including,” “has,” “having” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is not necessarily limited to only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Also, use of “a” or “an” are employed to describe elements and components described herein. This is done merely for convenience and to give a general sense of the scope of the invention. This description should be read to include one or at least one and the singular also includes the plural unless it is obvious that it is meant otherwise.

[0020] In the illustrated embodiment of FIGS. 2 and 3 the mooring line holder 1 comprises an upstanding circular cylindrical tubular galvanized aluminum or steel pole 1 with a flat foot plate 2 that is fastened by screwing or bolting to the pontoon. The pole 1 suitably is of the order of 30 mm in outside diameter and approximately 1.1 meters tall. The foot plate 2 suitably couples to the pole 1 by a coil spring 2A that allows the pole 1 to be deflected if pulled hard or brushed against, so that the presence of the pole 1 on the pontoon is relatively unobtrusive and prevents any damage from knocks.

[0021] The pole 1 uniquely further has a pair of circular cylindrical tubular support arms 5A, 5B that extend laterally from the axis of the pole 1, bifurcating from the upper end of the circular cylindrical tubular steel pole 1 to define a V-shaped formation at the top of the pole 1. The upper extremity of each support arm 5A, 5B has a respective one of a pair of vertical row-lock hooks/cradles 3A, 3B to serve as detents to hold a loop L1 of a mooring line 4 that is tethered at the other end to the pontoon. The pair of cradles 3A, 3B are spaced apart by the distance of separation of the upper ends of the support arms 5A, 5B from each other. The separation of the cradles 3A, 3B is suitably in excess of 100 mm and preferably 200 mm or more. This holds the loop L1 of the mooring line 4 open wide and as the loop L1 and line 4 hangs down from the cradles 3A, 3B it presents a clear open loop in the vertical plane that is an easy visual and physical target for the hooked tip of a long-poled boat hook to be aimed at and lunged horizontally through to snag the loop L1 and line 4 and pull it back over to the boat hook user on the boat. The target for the boat hook is always between the two support arms 5A, 5B that are the pillars of the V formation.

[0022] From having a clear target, the process of grabbing hold of the mooring rope by boat hook from the boat saves considerably on time and therefore is much more efficient as well as being safer. Since there are no working or moving components involved, the device requires little to no maintenance year after year. It can be made using durable and weather resistant materials commonly used in a marine environment such as PVC plastic and galvanized aluminum and is cheap, easy and relatively low cost to manufacture.

[0023] From trials the mooring line holder of the present invention worked every time. There were no incidents of failure to recover the rope or emergency attempts to grab the rope by disembarking onto the pontoon over an entire summer season. By contrast, prior trials of the conventional mooring line holder over a summer period resulted in a crew member routinely needing to disembark due to entanglement and running out of time during docking.

[0024] Referring to FIGS. 4 and 5, these show a modified version of the mooring line holder, which has a modular construction. The support arms 5A, 5B and uppermost extremity of the pole 1 are molded or cast as one piece forming a head module 5 that is preferably of nylon, HDPE, ABS or other tough plastic polymer or of a metal or alloy such as steel or aluminum. The main length of the pole 1 is formed separately, suitably as a tubular steel or aluminum extrusion. The head module 5 couples onto the top of the main length of the pole 1. In the illustrated arrangement of FIG. 5 the head module 5 has a collar part 5C that slips onto the top of the main length of the pole 1 and which may be threadedly secured in place. The main length of the pole 1 may comprise a single length of pole/tube but may optionally comprise two or more lengths that suitably can be telescoped to lengthen or shorten the pole 1 if desired.

[0025] The cradles 3A, 3B of the mooring line holder in FIG. 4 are straight-sided/vertical-sided (not having an in-turned rim at the top) and thereby further facilitate retrieval of the looped end of the mooring line L1 from the holder. The basal/lowermost end of the main length of the pole 1 has a coil spring 2A wrapped around it to allow deflection of the pole if knocked and it has a looped basal projection at its lowermost end that functions as the foot/base plate 2 of the pole 1 and allows a screw, bolt or the like fastening means to be passed through it and thereby used to anchor the mooring line holder onto the dock/pontoon.

[0026] Certain exemplary embodiments of the present invention are described herein and are illustrated in the accompanying figures. The embodiments described are only for purposes of illustrating the present invention and should not be interpreted as limiting the scope of the invention. Other embodiments of the invention, and certain modifications, combinations and improvements of the described embodiments, will occur to those skilled in the art and all such alternate embodiments, combinations, modifications, improvements are within the scope of the present invention.

[0027] It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications, combinations and variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the scope of the invention. Specific embodiments, features and elements described herein may be modified, and/or combined in any suitable manner. Thus, it is intended that the present invention cover the modifications, combinations and variations of this invention provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.