Mooring

A passenger ship mooring onto a harbour in Limone sul Garda, Italy.

A dockworker places a mooring line on a bollard.

A mooring is any permanent structure to which a seaborne vessel (such as a boat, ship, or amphibious aircraft) may be secured. Examples include quays, wharfs, jetties, piers, anchor buoys, and mooring buoys. A ship is secured to a mooring to forestall free movement of the ship on the water. An anchor mooring fixes a vessel's position relative to a point on the bottom of a waterway without connecting the vessel to shore. As a verb, mooring refers to the act of attaching a vessel to a mooring.^[1]

The term likely stems from the Dutch verb meren (to moor), used in English since the end of the 15th century.

^ Maloney, Elbert S.; Charles Frederic Chapman (1996). Chapman Piloting, Seamanship & Small Boat Handling (62 ed.). Hearst Marine Books. ISBN 978-0-688-14892-8.

[1] Maloney, Elbert S.; Charles Frederic Chapman (1996). Chapman Piloting, Seamanship & Small Boat Handling (62 ed.). Hearst Marine Books. ISBN 978-0-688-14892-8.

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