How to lay your own mooring

If you learn how to lay your own mooring, you can save thousands of pounds over a marina berth if you don’t mind a bit of digging, says Dick Durham

Over the years I have had deep water moorings laid for me and also dug in my own half-tide moorings. Both have been in positions which suited the craft I had at the time and also in locations which suited me but where there were no existing moorings available. In both cases the ground tackle used is no different to that used by private harbours or marinas.

Deep water

There are more options available with deep-water mooring roots for the simple reason that they are normally going to be below the bottom of the boat’s keel at low-water springs.

Deep-water moorings are much heavier than half-tide mooring roots because unlike the latter they are not buried. Once your swivel is shackled onto the root and the rising chain shackled to that – in both cases the shackle-pins should be seized with stainless steel wire – they will need to be lifted by a workboat and taken out to the location chosen.

With Powder Monkey, my 30ft Alan Buchanan Yeoman Junior, I found an old Thames sailing barge anchor, had one fluke cut off, and then via a chain bridle added a 35lb CQR so that the root could be laid across a south-east to north-west axis in anticipation of the strongest weather coming from the prevailing SW winds.

I paid a fisherman to lift the whole contraption on his trawl gallows, steam out to the location, drop it overboard and then steam ahead until he could no longer make headway to ensure both were ‘set’.

Anchor: Traditionally a large barge or small ship’s anchor – with one fluke cut off – is used as the root, and many of these can be seen scattered in boatyards around the East Coast, either awaiting new customers or new rising chain.

The reason one fluke is cut off is as an extra precaution to ensure the boat’s bottom never sits on the mooring root causing damage, an issue more important with a drying mooring, as we shall discover.

Concrete block: These are more common today as old anchors become rarer. They can weigh anything from two to three hundredweight (100-150kg) to half a tonne or more depending on the size of the craft moored.

When they are cast, a ring-iron – sometimes one half of a cut anchor chain link – is set in the wet concrete awaiting the cement to ‘cure’.

Concrete-filled lorry tyre: As with the block, the lorry or tractor tyre is filled with wet concrete and a ring inserted before it goes off.

Half-tide

The two most common roots for drying moorings are the one-fluke anchor and the bolted cross-beam. Some folks use the tyre filled with concrete, but these can work their way to the surface and also require more digging to get the width of the tyre down to the required depth.

Once I had my anchor, swivel and ground chain (heavier than the riser chain) assembled, I put them in my dinghy and rowed out to the position where the pit would be dug. I then threw them over the side and walked back out at low water. The mooring was for my current boat, Betty II, a 25ft wooden gaffer, which displaces some 2.5 tonnes.

I dug a 4ft-deep pit, using a fork, a shovel and a graft spade, and placed the anchor and fluke downwards in the bottom of the hole. I then jumped up and down on the shank ensuring the hook was at the bottom of the pit and then filled it with the unearthed mud, stamping it down to a wet ‘patty’ over the location. I then left it undisturbed for four tides (48 hours) to let the mud settle, before shackling on the riser chain and mooring buoy.

The beauty of laying your own mooring is that you know what’s down there rather than relying on the word of a marina hand.

Anchor

Most recently I used an ancient iron anchor I found ditched in a local creek. It weighed two hundredweight (100kg) and had clearly been used as a mooring root, as one fluke had already been removed. It was ideal for my purposes except that its stock had gone, so I had a length of scaffold pole welded to it.

Cross-beam

This is simply two pieces of 3ftx6in timber planking bolted together to form a cross. Some boat owners use railway sleepers for this purpose, but the extra weight they offer isn’t really necessary as the cross-beam is held in place by the suction and the depth of mud atop it.\

Need to know legalities

You need to contact the local council, yacht club or whoever controls the foreshore (which is actually owned by the Crown Estate). They will, or should, allocate you a location. Normally you should make sure your root spot is at least 30 yards from the nearest next root spot. You can pace this out as a circle. Charges are negligible for drying moorings. It’s about £150 annually for Southend foreshore.

It’s also worth noting that while etiquette might suggest otherwise, there are no laws stopping others using your mooring and, what’s more, if somebody picks up your mooring and it fails then you are liable.

Mooring size and design

You can probably get away with a single root for drying moorings for most craft up to 30ft LOA. Over that you might want to put down two roots connected with a bridle to which the riser chain is attached.

At the top of the mooring, you’ll need a large buoy holding the rising chain (which stays in the water) and a smaller pick-up buoy with a light line made fast to two hefty nylon mooring strops.

Maintenance

The root and chain beneath the mud last indefinitely as no air gets to them so they do not need to be lifted. But you need to check on the swivel – which is attached to the top end of the ground chain – and also the riser chain, which will degrade. You’ll need to do this every year. Some people remove the swivel and riser chain during the winter to cut back on wear and tear.

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