Mooring and Anchoring

The nowadays yachts are berthed side-on to a floating pontoon or dock in a marina, or have a swinging mooring attached to a buoy.

1. Marina berthing - the majority of marina pontoons and the yachts at them go up and down with the tide in a controlled environment. Other marinas have locks and are accessible only a few hours a day.

Yachts should be secured by the following lines/ropes:

bow line - led forward from a cleat on the foredeck to a cleat or a bollard on the pontoon.
stern line - led aft from a cleat on the aft deck to a cleat, ring or bollard on the pontoon
springs - fore and aft springs pull against the bow line and stern line to keep the yacht floating without the stern and bow to break down.

Securing the ropes
Mooring lines must be led through the fairleads.
If another yacht is using the bollard or mooring ring, it is polite to tie yours underneath theirs, so that they can easily take them out.

You can also use fenders to secure the side of the boat.

In order to enter a marina berth, you should approach very slowly, and try to keep everything secure and under control. Each rope should be secured to the yacht. Do not jump ashore too early. If you arrive during the day in a busy harbour there is always somebody around to help you by catching the line and tying it on a bollard; but if you arrive in the night or in other time when there's no helper from the shore, you should jump - you have to be careful and not jump too early, because you may fall in the water and/or the yacht may hurt you severely. It is a very tricky situation, this one because the helms person has to estimate the speed with which the yacht enters. If he makes a mistake, then the yacht might hit the dock and damage its bow. The real good helmspersons can enter and wharf under sails, but most people rely on the safety of the engine (especially when there are many other boats in the marina). At some point (before the bow has hit the dock) the engine should be switched on reverse gear, so that the inertia of the yacht is avoided, and no damage is done to the corpus or the bow line.
When the bow is already at the pontoon, the person who has jumped should very fast go to the nearest cleat or bollard and tie the yacht tightly. Then the engine is switched off and the crew does all the preparations for leaving the yacht - securing all the ropes/lines, attaching fenders, locking the cabin.
Before leaving and going to the town/city, the captain must obtain information about the tides, winds, the weather forecast.

The art of mooring and wharfing is something you learn through a lot of time of practice.

When the boat has to leave the marina and go to sea, again the captain and crew should have detailed information about the weather conditions at the moment and inform the neighbouring yachts about the maneuvering. All the members of the crew must stand in position and be ready to fend off, when needed. Again, you must be very careful not to put any of your limbs between two corpuses, or the boat and pontoon, because you may lose a finger or worse.

Reaction during tide: when the tide rises you need to shorten lines and ropes, when it falls, they should be loosened.