If you’ve never done it, picking up a mooring buoy seems like it should be the easiest thing in the world. All you need to do is head into the prevailing wind or current, slow to a crawl, and then have your handy mate on the bow lean over with the boathook and latch onto it. In the real world, however, a gust of wind can push the bow down, a sudden wave can push the buoy off to the side, the bow of your boat can be too high (or your mate’s arms are too short), whatever. Things can easily go amiss. I’ve seen people drop the boathook into the water, which is not a good idea; I once saw a mate fall off the boat into the water, which is an even worse one.
Here’s a great new video from Motor Boat & Yachting, the British magazine, about how to make all this as easy as possible. It even has two new (at least to me) ideas. One is to actually lasso the buoy; the other is to back up to the buoy, so the mate is working from the swim platform, which is lower and wider than the bow of the boat and makes all this much easier. Take a look:
http://www.mby.com/videos/how-to/video-pick-mooring-buoy
