My mooring may have moved.

Well there was no doubt about things yesterday, following the bit of a blow we had I received a call which commenced with " Hi Tony did you move your boat".. my boat took its mooring about 500m down stream and parked itself directly opposite the yacht Club. (Several others just went walkies without their moorings)

So it is now nicely tied up to the marina and will stay there for a month or so, but at some stage the mooring will need to be moved upstream again, this time something serious will need to be added to the bottom weight,

Suggestions on serious solutions that can be done on a diy basis would be welcome.

My thoughts are 1 1/2 tons of concrete cast in a square upside down mushroom shape so that if it falls over it has an ability to plow rather than skid along the bottom.

regards
 
pandos said:
...but at some stage the mooring will need to be moved upstream again, this time something serious will need to be added to the bottom weight,

Suggestions on serious solutions that can be done on a diy basis would be welcome.

My thoughts are 1 1/2 tons of concrete cast in a square upside down mushroom shape so that if it falls over it has an ability to plow rather than skid along the bottom.
Click to expand...
For a previous mooring I used a couple of mooring anchors (Admiralty pattern).
Our club currently uses ex-railway wheels.
eg http://www.boatgeardirect.co.uk/id17.html
 
You may be able to move your mooring back by making a sling under the boat that is lifted by the jib sheet winches. (assuming it is a sail boat) Then once the mooring is lifted it should be able to motor the boat with motor back to the location. As said the best way to stop it moving is with additional anchors on short chains in the direction you expect weather to come from. As aid if you can get down to the bottom by diving you can set purpose made fishermans' anchors with one fluke and no stock. If you can't get down then chain on additrional anchors as low as you can reach. Pull them out with a loop of rope around the stock so that you can disconnect the rope when roughly in place. Use your boat to pull the anchor by the rope against the mooring until it won't move then release it. Hopefully the anchors will set if the mooring starts to move again. Old danforth anchors would be fine but might be inclined to rust away fairly quickly. If not anchors then any heavy item you can move yourself tethered to the original mooring mass will help slow down the drag. good luck olewill
 
Are you sure its not someone's else's mooring that has shifted as a block of this size embedded in the mud should be more than capable of holding a boat of this size even with serious high winds and snatch loads generated by a big swell unless the riser has little scope and could snatch load the block whilst riding the top of a wave?
 
In abig blow your boat will have fully extended the heavy moovring chain, Th bouy on the unoccupied mooring will not have moved, so your relative positions will have changed. Suggest you use your boat to drag the chain in the opposite direction to the way you think it had moved and that will give you a better basis for deciding if the weight has or has not moved.
 
pandos said:
An overly long mooring is susceptible to damage from the bottom, Learned that from past experience where a line, 32 inches too long, frayed right through, and its replacement began to show signs of the same within a few weeks.

I may add more anchor chain to make the damping effect more extreme but only a matter of a few meter or two.

But for now I am happy to wait and see. Only one boat with 200m of me now so plenty of room for a little movement.!
Regards.
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I think you will have to put more length in, and it will have to be chain. If the line frayed does that indicate a hard bottom, sinker not bedding in? I would rig it so the rope part never reaches the bottom.
 
preventing drag in the first place???

My mooring also shifted a bit in one of the heavy blows. Knowing the size of the stuff
I am held to I am quite amazed. So...how to prevent this?

Presumably it is the violent motion and the snatching on steep short waves...

so how about a bungee link in the connection to the boat to take out the violence.

thinking of some heeeeeavy duty bungee here.

I recall (but can not locate) someone commenting in an article
on a yacht with bungee rather than rope connection to its mooring
behaving in a very docile manner compared to its neighbours.

anyone know of such a setup. of course there are stainless-steel rope springs and
rubber shock-absorbers we can use. Anybody here already using these and
feeling quietly bemused by the comments on shifting moorings?

would such an approach eliminate the problem of bouncing a mooring block?
 
If you look in the Admiralty Manual of Seamanship (mine's the 1938 edition) it defines a mooring as "two or more anchors laid down with large chains which are brought to a central ring for a ship to secure to". That describes my mooring laid by my local yard and it would hold a battleship. I see quite a few boats tied to bits of concrete, iron etc which get up and wander ashore when we get a blow on a big tide.
 
Well about 7 weeks ago, during the last real storm we had, whilst it was blowing what must have been 11 to 12 Nemo went for a little jolly down stream, along with its mooring. She moved about 500m and came to rest where at low water there is no water, ie on the beach, fortunately I was en route and was able to get on board and motor onto a nearby marina where she has rested since.

Yesterday I went to retrieve my mooring and found it on the beach, inverted with what must have been the remains of an enormous cone of seabed sitting on top of it, it was obviously solidly stuck to the seabed at some stage.

I moved it back up stream to its original spot using my tried and tested method but now I just need to work out a quick way to augment the block. It is 1m2 by 20 inches high so it is a half meter of concrete, lighter than I had remembered but also flatter with more suction than I originally thought. (but it has performed perfectly for at least 6 years often with a bigger boat and only being empty for 8 weeks over Christmas, so I'm not too worried about it moving again except in an exceptional storm.)

It is in a spot only exposed to South-Westerlies.

I am going to add to the length and weight of the ground chain but what about adding an anchor well dug in upstream and connecting this where the the ground chain meets the riser. Am I risking some sort of wear between the two chains rubbing. In practice I suspect both will lie on the seabed most of their lives. Thoughts welcome.

Regards

Tony
 
pandos said:
Well about 7 weeks ago, during the last real storm we had, whilst it was blowing what must have been 11 to 12 Nemo went for a little jolly down stream, along with its mooring. She moved about 500m and came to rest where at low water there is no water, ie on the beach, fortunately I was en route and was able to get on board and motor onto a nearby marina where she has rested since.

Yesterday I went to retrieve my mooring and found it on the beach, inverted with what must have been the remains of an enormous cone of seabed sitting on top of it, it was obviously solidly stuck to the seabed at some stage.

I moved it back up stream to its original spot using my tried and tested method but now I just need to work out a quick way to augment the block. It is 1m2 by 20 inches high so it is a half meter of concrete, lighter than I had remembered but also flatter with more suction than I originally thought. (but it has performed perfectly for at least 6 years often with a bigger boat and only being empty for 8 weeks over Christmas, so I'm not too worried about it moving again except in an exceptional storm.)

It is in a spot only exposed to South-Westerlies.

I am going to add to the length and weight of the ground chain but what about adding an anchor well dug in upstream and connecting this where the the ground chain meets the riser. Am I risking some sort of wear between the two chains rubbing. In practice I suspect both will lie on the seabed most of their lives. Thoughts welcome.

Regards

Tony
Click to expand...

In the past when we have had moorings drag & cannot get a tug to change the weight we have used another weight suspended from a launch & fitted a loop of chain around the mooring chain then gently lowered it making sure it did not trap the main chain
Not ideal but helped until the end of season lift out
 
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