Patented by Swiss test pilot Heinz Erwin Frick (Bae) in 1982, the Skyhook concept was conceived to operate Harriers from smaller ships. Thanks to a crane, the Harrier would have been caught in midair by an appropriately equipped ship and armed and refuelled, even in rough sea conditions. It had no takers.
An old friend demonstrating the validity of this pretty smart idea with a clever and quite economical rig.
Aviation Rapture 
This concept was shown the hard way. During maneuvers in Middle Atlantic, a Harrier pilot lost contact with his fleet; near fuel exhaustion, he saw an Spanish Container Merchant Ship, and landed on the deck, on containers. When the owner, captain and crew claimed this was a Sea Rescue, granting them a double digit percent of aircraft value, the Sea Courts, located in the UK, sentenced it was a mere transport, and paid some thousand pounds for the incident. A barefaced prevarication! Agur
Yep, I’ve linked an ancient post of mine about that.
While not nearly as impressive as the Harrier retrieval system The L4 Grasshopper Brodie system turned out to be of immense value. Safe to say, they saved passably thousands of lives off the coast of Okinawan! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9vAWEgw6cc
Operationally beautiful.
Wouldn’t it be simpler for the Harrier just to land on the ship?
Depends of its superstructure.