How to Anchor a Boat Mooring
Anchoring a mooring is much like anchoring a boat. You must pick the right place to deploy the anchor, ensure the soundness of the anchor rode, and provide enough weight to keep the moored vessel in place. Your choice of anchor weights is often more a matter of opinion than of physics. Keep in mind, too, that the length of your boat is a more important characteristic than its weight, and that you probably need a bigger anchor anyway.
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Things You'll Need
- Nylon rope
- Anchor chain
- Mushroom anchor
- Shackle
- Safety wire
- Anchor buoy
Instructions
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1
Push the rope through the last link on the anchor chain. Push the end of the rope--called the "bitter end"--through the ring a second time, keeping the second loop through the ring slack.
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2
Carry the bitter end around the main part of the rope. Push the bitter end through the slack loop.
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3
Pull the bitter end up and around the main body of the rope. Tuck the bitter end under itself and pull the knot tight.
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4
Join the anchor chain to the ring on the mushroom anchor with a shackle. Slip a piece of stainless steel safety wire through the hole in the end of the shackle's screw-in clevis pin, wrap both ends of the wire twice around the arm of the shackle in opposite directions, then twist the ends of the wire together.
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5
Tie the mooring buoy to the opposite end of the rope, using the same knot, called an anchor bend.
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6
Take the mushroom anchor, the nylon rope and the anchor buoy to the location of the mooring and lower the mushroom anchor to the bottom--do not drop the anchor. Uncontrolled release of the anchor increases the chances that the mooring rope will be fouled, rendering the anchor ineffective.
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7
Release the anchor buoy when the anchor touches bottom: the mooring is now anchored.
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Tips & Warnings
Make your anchor chain the same size as your mooring line.
In "The Complete Book of Anchoring and Mooring," its author, Earl Hinz, says that, "the chain lead should weigh at least as much as the anchor whose weight it is supplementing."
You're using nylon rope because it does not float; even so, be mindful of the rope when you approach the mooring buoy, lest it get caught in your propeller.
References
- Photo Credit buoy in qindao's port image by Luisafer from Fotolia.com
