Considering leaving my boat "moored" at a friends house during the week. I've seen some cool ideas in the past, but thought I would ask how you guys securly anchor your boat in the water for a week at a time. Its a sandy beach, can get a little rough from boat traffic, but not too bad. I think regular anchors would hold, but I know there are better ideas out there?

anchorbuddy....

Drop a heavy anchor and put a buoy on it. If you are allowed. Then the bow is always into the wind and it rolls over wakes easily.

Use a couple of anchors tied off with a Y harness, and a buoy on the surface. That way as the boat swings it will not pull the anchor off hold. Instead switching load to the other anchor. Use lots of slope too. Anchor line is designed to stretch and specifically intended for mooring a boat. Those anchor buddies are not a good way to go, and yes I have used them. As far as mooring goes, I am more used to working with a 34 foot yacht, in wind and current. Last thing we wanted to do was wind up grounded with a 7 ton keel in the mud/rocks. <BR> <BR>How deep and what is the visibility? The reason I asked about vis and depth is you will need to freedive down wearing a mask and set the anchors where you want them burying the flutes into the bottom. If it is under 25 feet no problem, but you probably want fins for anything around 20 feet. It may take a few shots, and if you stir mud up, then you will have to wait until it settles down. <BR> <BR>Make darn sure you use the proper knots, and braid where appropriate. <BR> <BR>Edit: Forgot to mention lots of heavy chain too! Saturday, when I dove down the anchor line, to make sure my anchor was set properly, the only thing holding it in a 15 knot wind was the chain. The anchor was not even being used. I reset everything though, so it did not snag any rocks or anything, when trying to pull it up. Point being, chain is just as important as the anchor. <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>(Message edited by Peter_C on April 03, 2007)

Depth will probably be around 15' and the vis is great. What is a Y harness? I cant quite picture that part.

the "v" part of the Y has an anchor at the top of each "v" that way if one breaks free you still have the second. The bottom of the Y goes the the front hook of the boat.

I have used cinder blocks with heavy chain in the past with no problem. You can also fill a couple 5 gallon buckets with cement and stick a steel eyelet at the top. Either way rig it up with a rope and Buoy at the top and your good to go!

Sounds easy enough. I am heading out to buy the stuff this afternoon.

One longer piece of chain can form the top of the Y, then in the middle use some connectors, and then your rope to the buoy, that will also need a swivel. The chain should be larger than 5/16". That is only for an anchor setup, where they face opposite directions. You would also want to back down on both anchors. Personally I would not trust a concrete bucket to hold my boat permanently. <BR> <BR>As said above, you need to check out the laws in the area for mooring.

No, I was going with the dual anchor idea. I know if I leave the lake, I'll take the anchors - I dont want to be the guy trashing my lake or causing someone to destroy their prop in ten years when my block washes up. I just bought a new prop after hitting someones cinder block mess. Not something I enjoyed doing $$!! - although I did upgrade to a better prop that I am much happier with.

Well you can leave the weights with a Buoy for anyone to use, failing that I can not even imagine what kind of storm it would take to wash this type of mass to shore. The lake I go to has these all along the shore line, if there is no buoy attached you can claim it. If you drive your boat in shallow enough water to nail your prop common sense would tell me to keep an eye out for an obstruction that could mangle it.

Ted, <BR> <BR>We moore our boat for the summer season but use huge permanent concrete mooring anchors, obviously not what your looking for. The Y-anchor concept seems pretty good and ought to work just fine especially if you want to remove it afterward. <BR> <BR>As far as moorings moving during a T-storm I've seen it and it ain't pretty. We used to allow folks at our club to manage their own mooring anchors and quite a few of them went with the concrete, rebar and bucket program. Trust me it doesn't work all that well. I've seen several boats pinball their way through the mooring field off other boats on their way down the lake. Ouch, especially when its a party barge! I believe concrete looses its mass in water more so than steel. <BR> <BR>Not too sure if you plan on using a mooring ball but if you do I recommend you use a noodle (fat one) from the bottom of the ball to where you plan on attaching it to the boat, then lock it (run the chain through the noodle, may have to cut it then zip tie it together). This will keep the mooring ball or whatever you choose to use from sitting directly under your bow when there's no wind and prevent the grab ring on the mooring ball from scratching the side of your boat when bouncing up and down from boat wakes. Make sense? We also use a secondary line to/from the mooring ball just in case the chain comes disconnected for whatever reason. Seen the results of that too. <BR> <BR>Does the lake level drop much? If so if you use a carabeener (sp?) quick connect just beneath the ball and run the chain from the anchor through it you can easily adjust the scope and keep it at an optimum length (we use 6' higher than the lake level) to allow the boat to swing. <BR> <BR>Excuse all the information, some of the tricks we have found to be successful over the years. <BR> <BR>We'll be down in the ORL area next week as per my e-mail. Looking forward to hooking up and knocking off the rust. It's actually snowing up here today, <img src="http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/clipart/angry.gif" border=0>. <BR> <BR>JGates

Good info. I went and drove around my lake yesterday - mooring boats is not common, but its being done. I plan to buy the stuff sometime before this weekend. I am also looking into a lift (different thread). Snow sucks if your not snowboarding! It was in the upper 80s yesterday...

The chain is what they use from the bottom to the buoy on big boats, but in your case, Ted some good reasonably thick anchor line will have some give to it. This will help keep the anchors mounted solid instead of jerking them loose, like chain might do. Consider the rope only good for one summer season. It is not much money after all.

Ted, <BR> <BR>What prop did you end up getting? What was wrong with the old one? : ) <BR> <BR>(Message edited by garret_s on April 05, 2007)

1316? sound right? The bigger better expensive one...