taquet de garde

15:11 Nov 30, 2012 

My pleasure ...! When I was chatting to my mate the rigger I remembered the discussion and I thought it would be useful to have a "from the horse's mouth" example.
My English yachting friends call them just "midship(s) cleats", as you have - "mooring" is understood among the faithful ...
;-)

14:12 Nov 30, 2012 

Thanks a lot for taking the time and trouble to contribute! It's always great to have this sort of real-life confirmation, and this is certainly the term happily validated by my customer; so all's well that ends well! :-)

14:04 Nov 30, 2012 

but for future reference, my I add my 2 cents-worth: yesterday I was talking to my (French) rigger about fitting midship cleats to my Moody (built in the 1980s when fore and aft cleats were all you got). He said, "Oui, bien sur - tu veux dire des taquets de garde...". And of course their function - and the reason I want them fitted - is to relieve the fore and aft cleats, which quickly get overloaded if each carries a pointe (breast line) and a garde (spring).

14:48 Oct 2, 2012 

I really appreciate your help on this one, I was against a tight deadline, my own researches weren't very conclusive, and I was going into 'headless chicken' mode!

In terms of context, I realize now I ought to have explained that my list of deck fittings already contained 4 mooring cleats (obviously Port / Stbd, fore/aft) plus these 2 (from my document, I had no way of knowing their location). So it needed a leap of faith to realize that the position was what mattered here, as explained by their function.

Thanks, again, one and all!