Mooring advice

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diapason

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I'm almost ready to launch my 17' trailer sailer on a local lake. I need to make up my own mooring. The club advice is for at least 12 metres of 10mm chain - I've bought 15 metres. I've been offered a concrete-filled tyre as a mudweight. Other boats are using similar weights but one dragged recently in a storm. Do people think that this is enough to hold the boat in about 8-10 metres of water on an inland reservoir which is prone to gusty conditions?
Thanks for your comments.
N
 
diapason said:
I'm almost ready to launch my 17' trailer sailer on a local lake. I need to make up my own mooring. The club advice is for at least 12 metres of 10mm chain - I've bought 15 metres. I've been offered a concrete-filled tyre as a mudweight. Other boats are using similar weights but one dragged recently in a storm. Do people think that this is enough to hold the boat in about 8-10 metres of water on an inland reservoir which is prone to gusty conditions?
Thanks for your comments.
N
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Id think it rather depends upon the size of the tyre.

Our moorings are concrete sinkers Sort of squat flat topped pyramids from memory best part of a metre square. They also have a 12ft length of very heavy (1" ???) chain cast into them.

You'd need a lorry tyre to equal the weight i'd think.

10mm is plenty heavy enough for the riser .but will it fit in your stem head fitting?

I'd not think 15m is long enough for 10m of water

Or do I misunderstand. Are you also shackling on a longer length of lighter chain?
 
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Mooring

The concrete filled tire might be OK I am assuming it is a car tire. However it will have limited friction to the bottom and could easily be dragged. The easiest way to remedy this is to add one or more anchors on a short chain to the tire. The tire then acts like a huge anchor angel holding the pull down low while the anchor digs in. Unfortunately with just one anchor any strong winds from any direction other than the direction the anchor is set will result in dragging until the anchor can reset. The fix for this is more anchors. Ideally 4 anchors. However you would then need to dive down to set the anchors in place. You then have a proper mooring indeed with heavy joining chains you don't need the tire.
My own mooring has evolved over the years. Originally a great lump of iron in the shape of a bell. The chain was attached to that. Rust however has reduced the size of the attachment so I passed a bolt with an eye through a rusted hole. Meanwhile I wanted to move the mooring a few meters so ran a heavy chain out to another mooring and shackled the riser to this a few metres from the bell. Since then some concrete filled car tires became available. They were small enough to hang under the stern of the solid dinghy and I was able to drop them in position. I think I have 3 tires and one old danforth anchor all pulling in different directions. So any failure of friction or attachment will be backed up by more weights after a bit of movement. As you can guess it is in 3 metres of water and I do dive on it frequently.
If you can't dive on your mooring get the heaviest weight then add one anchor on a chain good luck olewill
PS it may be easier to handle several small concrete filled tires than one big one.
 
Our club uses concrete discs 1 metre dia' by about 400cm deep, with a steel eye cast in.

Then very heavy 'destroyer chain' to a large floating buoy, then a swivel - beware the swivel is usually the weakest link, so make it oversize - then 1/4" chain to the boat.

The thing is, these are half tide moorings so we are able to go out at Low Water and dig deep holes,placing guidance canes fore & aft & on the beam; the sinker is then taken out on a specially constructed catamaran raft with a short simple crane.

If you're just plonking the sinker on the lake bed, it will need to be very heavy not to drag in gales, it would be difficult to make it too heavy apart from handling into place !

As others have suggested an anchor - or several - near the bottom end of the chain seems a good idea.

Another measure one can take is to remove the sails when leaving the boat, which considerably reduces windage in a gale compared to sails stowed on headsail roller & boom.
 
Thanks for all your advice. One problem we have is physically getting the weight into position. We usually use a Pioneer which has a lowering ramp at the bow. However, it's very hard to lift the weights onto the ramp and again to get them into the water - there's only room for one man to work in the bow and the chain going overboard in a rush is a hazard. There are about 5 moorings near the clubhouse and the others mostly use concrete-filled tyres - but, as I said, one dragged recently in a storm. I'll try to get hold of two tyres and an old fisherman's anchor or similar. I can't get them properly laid out as diving isn't allowed in the lake. One advantage is that I'll be able to see the boat on the club webcam and I live close by if the worst happens.
N
 
diapason,

I don't know if there are any larger boats on the lake, but to position my sinker we tied it under my Fathers' 26' Centaur then cut the ropes when in position; the chain was loosely held so as to keep the sinker upright.

As you're dropping a lot further down doing this would require great care, as it would be easy to lose a finger or two !

So the sinker must be possible to lower in a controlled manner via the chain, and if things should run away just stand back, bits of anatomy are harder to replace than moorings...
 
You could of course use 2 tyres instead of a single,doubling the weight and tendency to drag, depending on how the first tyre is attached both could be centred via a thicker chain riser; if the heavier riser can be shackled to lighter chain near the surface the replacement of the shackle and regular inspection for wear can be done at waterlevel and only light chain taken aboard.



ianat182
 
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