REVIEWS

DF. France
“…Our experience with Line A Sure is mostly for Med style moorings in Calas to bring a line on rocks on shore. It helps because you can usually do it from the sailboat without using the dinghy…”.

Pat R. (Leeds)
“…I have found Line-A-Sure to be an excellent product for getting the first line ashore in difficult winds. My crew use it most of the time. Always seems to pick up something be it  a cleat, or edge of pontoon. Popular with crew because if I don’t manage to get the boat close to pontoon they can still attach a line. We bought two Line-A-Sures and made use of the reduced price for two.”

Barbara (Leicestershire)
“Makes short–handed mooring easier and safer …”.

Alison (IOWight)
“I used a Line-a-Sure for rescuing a pet Labrador. Poor thing was swimming against the current in Newtown Creek and becoming breathless.”

Nigel (Hertfordshire)
“…Line-A-sure is useful for getting a line through the eyes of large mooring buoys that do not have a pick up float. They are a long way down from the deck and you can get one of the flukes of the Line-a-Sure through the eye without using a boat hook.”

Hughie (Newcastle)
“ The Line-a-Sure is very strong. I towed my friend’s car with it one night out of a flood and there was any sign of stretching of the flukes”.

Dawn S (Ocean sailor)
“…a useful device …I use it as a throwing line”.

John (Southampton)
“…I accidentally ran over my Line-a-Sure with my Landy and miraculously it was undamaged apart from a few scratches.”

What Ho!

I have used the Line-A-Sure many times as an experienced ocean sailor; it has proven to be strong and easy to use when coming alongside a pontoon, most especially when short-handed or when docking with equipment failure.  I have found another use for it: as it acts as a good snubber for reducing the shock on mooring lines and deck gear thus helping to preserve the hull integrity of new vessels.

Nigel T-S

Practical Boat Owner Issue 550 Summer 2012: “The short-handed sailor needs all the help he/she can get, and a mooring aid that attaches to both buoys and cleats is a useful purchase. The Line-A-sure can also assist MOB recovery, and is even claimed to be useable for “light temporary towing”. It is a little different from most mooring aids on the market, many of which are mooring hooks with a bit of trickery on the end: the Line-A-sure is tough plastic grappling hook you attach to a rope. From on board the yacht you swing it onto a buoy or cleat before hauling in and securing a more permanent line”

“…A small grapnel with a length of line attached is a handy implement to have on the cabin top with the assorted bits and pieces of gear that usually find a home there on a cruising yacht. It can be thrown up on to a quay and used to haul the yacht alongside, or cast over a buoy beyond the reach of the boat hook, …”.

“Each single-hander will have his own quirks and notions of what he needs to make life easier and help him to do the work of at least two men, which at times he must be able to do. Each will develop his own stratagems and his own short cuts and dodges so that he can find his way equally across oceans of the world and in and out of the harbours, rivers, yacht marinas, shady lagoons and secret creeks of wherever he chooses for his cruising ground….”* (pages 116-117)

“…Work out your own handy implements. Here is a simple grapnel – if not always appreciated by some harbour authorities…”* (page 116 referring  to a depiction of a metal grappling hook)

“…This book may be the start of an addiction…it happens to be very good…”**

“…Frank Mulville has sailed his gaff cutter Iskra to Norway and Round Iceland; he has made six solo crossings of the Atlantic. He is a regular contributor to Practical Boat Owner, Yachting Monthly, …”*

*Single-handed Sailing. Frank Mulville. Seafarer Books. 10 Malden Road, London. 1994.

ISBN 0850364108