Alex Blackwell, the noted voyager of Clew Bay, has a thing about moorings and anchoring. In fact, he and his wife Daria, in between intervals of oceanic cruising and making a direct administrative input with both the Ocean Cruising Club and the Irish Cruising Club, somehow found the time to write the definitive and highly-regarded book, “Happy Hooking –The Art of Anchoring”.

Published by their company White Seahorse, it takes its philosophy from revered western old salt Tommy Moran: “Anchor as though you plan to stay for weeks, even if you intend to leave in an hour”. Thus, those of us who have anchored with care and consideration for others, only to be subsequently verbally abused with “You anchored too close (expletives deleted” by people whose boat has dragged down on top of us from a very considerable distance, can always take comfort and information from the sage Blackwell words. And when Alex draws attention to something of significance, everyone takes notice, particularly those of us who prefer to use our own anchor, but sometimes find there’s no alternative to using the visitors moorings when they fill an anchorage.

Alex & Daria Blackwell – their pleasure in freely voyaging is matched by a determination to stay put when anchored.

The distillation of years of experience in successful cruising - the definitive sourcebook of sound anchoring

His latest online posting is a classic, and deeply concerning. On a Clew Bay beach, he found the drifted buoy of a Visitors’ Mooring. While the visible bits above water were reasonably well maintained, it was painfully obvious that the main chain – the riser – hadn’t been seriously inspected in years, having rusted away to such a curious extent that it might almost be a piece of modern mini-sculpture.

Maybe so, but in its final functioning days, it couldn’t have held a boat of 15 milligrams, let alone the proclaimed 15 tonnes. Being very much a Mayo man, Alex was relieved to find that none of the local installations of visitors’ moorings had the originally yellow plastic buoys painted red. That was done in this case, though one would guess it was a paint job a very long time ago. Whatever, if you happen to know of an anchorage where somebody has gone to the trouble of painting the visitors’ mooring red, but has evidently failed on the follow-up maintenance, do please let us know, as visitors’ moorings have been a feature of many Irish anchorages for some time now, and it would be alarming to think this is not an isolated case.

Much of the Blackwells’ extensive cruising has been done in the Bowman 57 Aleria, whose excellent sailing performance has been matched by the owners’ determination to be completely secure when stopped, regardless of the amount of time they plan to be anchored