Temporary "permanent" mooring on the cheap

[a64pilot]

With an old cattle guard, you have a large grate of sorts that will sink into the mud over time and would take a rather large force to pull it out.
Of course you have to be in a place that has cattle guards like Texas or Oklahoma or somewhere, or weld up something like one.
As a kid and a contract welder many years ago in the oil patch, we made fences, and cattle guards and most anything out of old worn out drill stem, it was difficult to weld as it was often magnetic, I think spinning in the ground somehow magnetized it.

Idea is though that something like a big grate will sink it and be held in the mud, and it's not just the weight that holds it it. Might not work well on a sand bottom though

[Lokiyawl]

Originally Posted by youngson

Hello there, I'm about to purchase an oday 27 and I will need to keep it anchored for the next 8 months or so, it will be in a river with a slow- medium current and a nasty mucky mud bottom, I was wondering if you had any techniques for cheap mooring that I can pair with the anchor? And what weight of cement you'd recommend and in what configuration etc.. Etc..
Thank you for any feed back

At least three anchors set at approx. equal angles to each other with the rode running to a good swivel where all three or more rodes come together. If you look at the numbers, anchors will hold far more than most moorings which only rely on deadweight anyway which is why I still add anchors to my actual mooring. Crank up the tension on the rodes using the primary winches to be sure that you are indeed well set. Due to the triangular arrangement, the loads on the anchors will always be in the same direction so there is a low chance of a break out. A pc. of chain or line running up to your mooring buoy. If your in mud or sand, Danforth style anchors will work great. I am personally fond of the hi tensile Danforth anchors but for a temp mooring anchors of the Danforth style of around 30 lbs. should suffice. I stayed on such a temp mooring in a somewhat exposed area for over 3 years through some pretty bad storms with no problems. James

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Lokiyawl

At least three anchors set at approx. equal angles to each other with the rode running to a good swivel where all three or more rodes come together. If you look at the numbers, anchors will hold far more than most moorings which only rely on deadweight anyway which is why I still add anchors to my actual mooring. Crank up the tension on the rodes using the primary winches to be sure that you are indeed well set. Due to the triangular arrangement, the loads on the anchors will always be in the same direction so there is a low chance of a break out. A pc. of chain or line running up to your mooring buoy. If your in mud or sand, Danforth style anchors will work great. I am personally fond of the hi tensile Danforth anchors but for a temp mooring anchors of the Danforth style of around 30 lbs. should suffice. I stayed on such a temp mooring in a somewhat exposed area for over 3 years through some pretty bad storms with no problems. James

If you don't want to get into formal moorings, this is the way to go.

Just make sure the swivel is high quality and way oversized as they are often the weak link.

[jreiter190]

PM me and I'll tell tell methods for a temp. Mooring one is not expensive, the other is dirt cheap and held a heavy 32 Challenger in Mazatlan,Mexico in a strong wind and tide situation for a month.

[zedpassway]

Originally Posted by CREX

Why not just a, or couple, of mushroom anchors. Legal anywhere, and with a bit of digging out

Not anywhere. Totally illegal around Mount Desert Island, Maine, USA. Any mooring requires permission of the towns on the island.

[Cadence]

I can't see using some jury rig for a mooring especially in a soft bottom. One good sized mushroom anchor with chain and a spar buoy if you can find one.

[Grateful]

OP,

I don't know where you are located, so maybe you are allowed to DIY.

I once put in a mooring for my parent's 22' full keeled pocket cruiser in front of their home in the South Puget Sound where there was a pretty good current twice a day.

We took a clean, used 55 gallon drum with the top off, and four two inch holes punched 6" above the lower perimeter. We put two 4' lengths of iron bar cross ways through those holes and draped a 5' length of very heavy logging chain around the cross and over the top of the barrel.

We took the drum down to the beach at low tide, and then filled it with concrete, steel punching, scrap iron, lead wheel weights, and any other heavy junk we could find or had on hand. It was about 70% scrap and 30% concrete. In the end, there was a drum filled to about 2/3 with concrete and scrap with a couple of feet of chain coming out of the top and the iron bar ends poking out around the bottom sitting at the low tide line. We let the whole works cure through a couple of tides and then spliced a rode onto the chain.

When it came time to place it, we lashed a few truck inner tubes to the anchor and waited for high tide. At high tide, using the biggest power boat we could borrow, we dragged the anchor and rode off the beach. The inner tubes didn't quite float the barrel, but close enough to drag it off the beach and out to it's final position.

We hauled the drum and inner tubes to the surface by the rode, carefully laid the rode out on the deck of the boat, got two guys to hold the rode around a single arm of an aft cleat, and one guy with a knife on the inner tube lashing. On three we cut the lashing and let her go. The bottom there is sand, gravel up to aout the size of your fist, and clay. By the end of the first summer, the barrel had settled about half way into the bottom at about a 40 degree angle. If I were to do it again, I'm not sure I'd bother with the iron bars, but we didn't want the thing to roll along the bottom.

That was more than twenty five years ago and although my parents are long gone, as far as I know, that mooring has still got a boat attached to it, although I'm not sure I'd trust that chain or splice.

[CGirvan]

Originally Posted by jreiter190

PM me and I'll tell tell methods for a temp. Mooring one is not expensive, the other is dirt cheap and held a heavy 32 Challenger in Mazatlan,Mexico in a strong wind and tide situation for a month.

I would be interested in your methods, why not post?

[Petrel]

Depending on the depth of the "river" a helix post works great

[Petrel]

Check out a helix anchor...no need for weight

[Stumble]

The normal recommendation for your boat would be a 3,000lbs block of concrete. Which works out to be about 20 cubic feet. Minus the displacement of the water (62.4lbs/cubic foot) 1248 this leaves a dead weight of 1752lbs. It doesn't matter much what you use to get this dead weight load, but its in that area.

And oil drums make terrible moorings, they have a propensity to roll along the bottom. The best easily made shape is a big flat square, that has huge amounts of surface area to drag along the bottom.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Stumble

The normal recommendation for your boat would be a 3,000lbs block of concrete. Which works out to be about 20 cubic feet. Minus the displacement of the water (62.4lbs/cubic foot) 1248 this leaves a dead weight of 1752lbs. It doesn't matter much what you use to get this dead weight load, but its in that area.

And oil drums make terrible moorings, they have a propensity to roll along the bottom. The best easily made shape is a big flat square, that has huge amounts of surface area to drag along the bottom.

Sorry! Who are you going to get the set that 3000#s.

[jreiter190]

CGirven,Grateful described the"dirt cheap" Deadman we made in Mexico, and the rebar was to keep it from rolling. The permanent mooring was one e made at Moss Landing Marine Laboratory to hold a 103 foot tugboat in Monterey Bay (bight),a YCM. Ithe consisted of a20"truck rim with heavy anchor chain welded to the middle and run up through 12' or so of 6" pvc pipe and terminated at a swivel. We then poured expanding foam til it overflowed and capped both ends. Some reflecting tape and radar reflector and dumped over the side of the Oconastota in 40'of water with a sand bottom. After a week, we dove on it and the truck rim was completely out of sight. A scaled down version would certainly hold a small sailboat such as yours. It will work in a sand or mud bottom.

[Rick Williams]

we've had a lot of success with screw anchors. Most of our bottoms are either sand or mud/sand and the screw anchors can be installed by a person with scuba gear. They screw in with some effort and a big bar but after a couple days appear to be impossible to remove with a straight pull and we usually put three down and link them together into one swivel connector. If it's a hurricane mooring you can put an anchor out from each screw anchor. The whole thing doesn't depend on weight and can actually be done without a barge if the bottom is soft enough to accept screw anchors and the local regs allow it. The power company use them to hold their pols up or you can get them from Home Depot or there's a guy I found at the boat show that makes them for our demographics and before anyone tells me that's crazy, it will never work, it does and has worked well here in Florida for many years and many hurricanes.

[Djarraluda]

Back in the dim and distant past in Pommyland, we were "required" to lay moorings with 2 weights or sinkers ACROSS the creek, swivel and riding scope from the middle of the ground chain.
Over the years it was getting harder and harder, so we started laying along the creek and improved positioning no-end. The ground tackle could be shorter and they did not interfere with each other.
In Sydney, most contractors use concrete blocks, 1 or 2 tonne, or even 2 x 1 tonne with a short ground chain between as it is easier for them to cast a new block and have a stock of some on the barge they use so they can replace them during the annual lift and service. I believe it is the steel hoop that corrodes more than the concrete degrades.
Permission, in the form of a license and the accompanying fee, has always been a requirement everywhere I have been - after all, someone, even if it is Government, owns the river bed and wants an income from it.
Roger