Making a Mooring

[twista]

Does anyone have any tips on making a mooring? I can't find my mooring this year and need to make a new one...My DS was moored on a medium sized lake in NH...

[rnlivingston]

At our sailing club we make moorings by pouring cement in a 2 foot by 2 foot by 1 foot high form. We stick a gavanized eye bolt in the middle and let it set. Be prepared...it weighs a lot and it is tough to move.

Roger L.

[MAXUM]

I just deployed a mooring last weekend. Thing I found interesting was the lack of information on the web to help aid in the design, so it took me a while to formulate what I needed. Now this mooring is in a larger NH lake, and is open to the prevailing wind so it can get pretty choppy. I designed this mooring with the intention of either putting my DS on it or a 17' I/O powerboat. As a side note to that, although the powerboat outweighs the DS by at least 1K pounds, I found some very compelling information which suggested that the DS would actaully pull harder on the mooring in heavy wind. Anyways I used cement blocks for anchors, pouring 3 blocks 2' square and about 7" thick. I put a 3" PVC pipe through the middle of the concrete to run the chain through since I did not want to worry about putting in eye bolts that would eventually rust out. Each block contained 2 80lb bags of concrete. Each weighed about 200 lbs. I dumped them on the bottom of the lake, fished galvanized chain through the PVC pipes and shackled the chain to itself on the bottom and the top to the mooring bouy. I made sure that I had enough slack in the chain to equate 1.5 times the depth of the water. I finally made a rope to attach the boat to the mooring bouy by splicing in two snap hooks, the rope I made gives the boat a 9' scope.

I hope this is enough anchor to hold the boat, I read that concrete looses up to 50% of it's weight underwater so keep that in mind. Depending on where you're dropping that mooring 2 or 3 blocks of equivalant size would probably work fine. I assume you'd be dropping this in Lake Massebessic along Rt 121 and that area is pretty well protected from the prevailing wind and has a good sandy bottom so the blocks will settle real good in the lake bed. Of course you have to assemble the entire mooring before dumping it because you can't swim in the lake (not that I'd want to) that tea colored water does not look to inviting.

[Roger]

At our marina, we use cement filled tires. Place a green garbage bag inside a rubber tire to act as a bottom "release agent". (It can be torn away after the cement has set.) This acts to create a bottom across the lower rim of the tire. As you pour cement in, of course, it will press down and slightly out around the lower rim to form to whatever base you have the tire on. (Driveway, parking lot, grass, etc) As you are filling it, place a V shaped piece of 1/2" rebar upside down (/\) into the centre of your cement. Continue to fill the tire, shoveing cement under the rim. Let it set. Remove the plastic garbage bag. Attach a chain, and roll it onto the boat you plan to use to deploy the mooring from. Need more weight? Use more tires. Individually, they can still be moved (with difficulty), but chained together, they are impossible. It will be well past your children's lifetime when the rebar rusts through. The beauty of this system is that they are easly rolled to where you want them, after they have been manufactured.

[twista]

I ended up using two large cement blocks (120 lbs) and some galvanized chain from Home Depot... Launched it today without a problem...and yes I'm on the north side of Massebesic Rt 121...this will be my third year...I was not able to find the mooring this year due to the water being extremely cloudly...possible due to all the rain...so I had to make a new mooring..

[windcaptain]

What do you use as a float - Any special conciderations?

thanks

At our marina, we use cement filled tires. Place a green garbage bag inside a rubber tire to act as a bottom "release agent". (It can be torn away after the cement has set.) This acts to create a bottom across the lower rim of the tire. As you pour cement in, of course, it will press down and slightly out around the lower rim to form to whatever base you have the tire on. (Driveway, parking lot, grass, etc) As you are filling it, place a V shaped piece of 1/2" rebar upside down (/\) into the centre of your cement. Continue to fill the tire, shoveing cement under the rim. Let it set. Remove the plastic garbage bag. Attach a chain, and roll it onto the boat you plan to use to deploy the mooring from. Need more weight? Use more tires. Individually, they can still be moved (with difficulty), but chained together, they are impossible. It will be well past your children's lifetime when the rebar rusts through. The beauty of this system is that they are easly rolled to where you want them, after they have been manufactured.

[Roger]

we have used just a standard fender, mooring ball, or to match the cement filled tire, we also have a tire and hub wheel assembly that holds air. As heavy as these are, they do float. You can run the chain up through the center hole of the rim, and place a long bolt to keep the chain from dropping through, then attach a mooring pennant to the chain. These do scuff up the hulls though, so you want to make sure that if you use them the lines are tight and the floating tires well away from the hull. We use these where a boat is bow to a dock, with no finger dock along the sides. the tire anchors are off each quarter and the floating tires are outboard from the stern quarters about 10'. When docking you still have to manoeuver between the floating tires, and there is a chance of scuffing your hull.