mooring

Hi all,

-When a ship's movement is to be, somehow, restraint at a port, can you say that the ship has to be moored? I mean, can moor be an action?

-One other question, is a ship moored at a port or in a port, meaning that it will be attached to, say, mooring bollards? Can the mooring action, expressed this way, be understood as dropping the ship's anchor by the port - probably there's another way of saying (rather than mooring the ship) that one has to drop the ships anchor. Is there?

Thank tou. 👁 Smile :)

I must admit I tend to associate the action of "mooring" a ship with tying cables to bollards on the quayside. But I think you can write about ships having dropped anchor by saying they were then "moored in the harbour".

I agree with Donny. In a wide sense, a ship that's dropped anchor is 'moored.'
I don't know another word for the result: 'the ship is anchored" or "the ship is moored."

I wouldn't call a ship at anchor "moored." Note that a ship can be moored to cleats rather than bollards on the pier*, or outboard another vessel (tied to cleats on the other ship).

* I don't think there are bollards on any of the piers at the sub base.

You can moor a vessel by dropping at least two anchors - see 1801 quote.

OED:

To secure (a ship, boat, or other floating object) in a particular place by means of one or more chains, ropes, or cables fastened to the shore or to anchors.
1801 J. J. Moore Brit. Mariner's Vocab. sig. N6v, To Moor,..a ship is never said to be moored when she rides by a single anchor.

Being technical, any ship attached to the solid surface of the earth and which is not aground, slipped, or dry-docked is "moored". A vessel can moor to a quay (be moored alongside), moor to piers, piles or dolphins (moored alongside or moored fore and aft), moor to another vessel (be rafted), be moored to a buoy, or moor to its anchor (be anchored). I may have missed out some variations on a theme.

A Bahamian moor uses two anchors, usually one forward and one aft, in line with the expected tidal stream. A two-anchor moor for heavy weather uses two anchors off the bow so the rodes form a V. A Baltic moor and a Mediterranean moor are two different techniques using a combination of shore lines and anchor. All of these are methods of mooring using anchors.

That doesn't stop there being two transitive verbs, as asked in the OP.

Ah_poix_e said:

can moor be an action?

Yes
He moored his ship.
He anchored his ship.

PS, sorry, I should have said that a ship can moor to its anchors. As PaulQ's quote points out, there must be at least two anchors down for it to be moored, if there is no shore line.