Anchoring and mooring
An act as simple as throwing an anchor overboard can impact on the world below. Dropping an anchor on coral can take seconds to damage or destroy it. Under ideal circumstances, it may take years for the coral to rebuild and in some cases, the coral may never return to its former glory.
By taking a little extra care when anchoring and using moorings, where available, you will help protect this delicate underwater landscape.
When anchoring
- Use public moorings where available and do not anchor.
- Where possible, anchor in sand or mud away from corals and other fragile marine environments. Suitable areas often show up as flat and smooth on your sounder.
- Anchor a safe distance from other boats and look out for people in the water when dropping your anchor. Never wrap anchor rope or chain around bommies or large coral heads.
- If anchoring ashore, carefully place the anchor to minimize damage.
- If anchoring overnight, anchor before nightfall and double check the swing room.
- Carry enough chain and line for the depth you want to anchor in and use only as much chain as you need to hold the vessel safely.
- Use your sand anchor and reef pick appropriately to minimize damage.
- Motor towards the anchor when hauling it in and retrieve the anchor when the line is vertical.
- If the anchor is caught on a reef, free it by hand wherever possible.
- Do not force the anchor free by motoring forward.
- Keep watch to make sure the anchor isn’t dragging.
Moorings are a weight of some sort with a chain attached to it and a Mooring Buoy. This buoy is usually white with a blue strip around it.
Boats attached to moorings for various reasons:
- They are in tidal waters that go up and down quite a bit and they do not want their boats on a dock.
- Sailboats do not want to have their keel on the bottom, or cannot easily dock in tight docks in tidal waters
- It is cheaper to rent a mooring than dock space
- You are not going to visit your boat for an extended period of time and do not want to worry about weather or theft.
Anchoring is like mooring, but it is very short term on temporary in nature. You drop your anchor and tie off your boat. This is not as stable as mooring, as the anchor may not hold the boat and the boat may drag the anchor. Also, an anchored boat usually has someone on board and a moored boat usually does not.
Environmental impacts of mooring and anchoring
Ports and harbors around the U.S coast, and the estuary and bay habitats in which they lie provide shelter and safe anchorage for ships and boats. However, the anchoring of vessels may disturb or damage animals and plants on the seabed, either temporarily by increasing suspended sediments from the disturbance of the bottom or through direct contact with dragging anchors.
The effects are of most concern in areas with sensitive or slow growing species, such as shellfish beds, soft corals, sea grasses and maerl. Disturbance from anchoring depends on upon the frequency, magnitude and location of activity, type of sediments, and the sensitivity of benthic communities.
Where the seabed sediments are soft and there are no sensitive communities or other underwater obstructions, damage caused by anchoring is likely to be minimal and any disturbance is generally temporary, although disturbance in low energy environments can be more than temporary. However, when anchoring over sensitive rocky communities the effects may be more damaging, for example on subtidal reef habitats.
However, anchoring is often already restricted or discouraged in areas containing debris, wrecks, and other obstructions, typical of uneven rocky bottom areas, which are referred to as foul ground on navigational charts. The impacts from mooring vessels depend on the type of mooring involved.
There have been concerns expressed that the location of moored craft close to the shore may cause disturbance through noise and vessel movements, particularly where it is adjacent to intertidal feeding areas used by birds.
However, there appears to be very little literature and evidence that supports this view. The existence of tall yacht masts does not seem to constitute a line of sight obstruction for those birds that are sensitive to such a constraint.
In most leisure mooring areas, the number of times a vessel is moved per year is very low and such movements are concentrated into a few hours on Saturday mornings and Sunday evenings. Disturbance levels are therefore minimal.
Where drying moorings exist, the moorings can only be used when the intertidal areas are covered, thus eliminating any disturbance to feeding birds.
The existence of a permanent mooring area close to a wildlife site has the effect of keeping vessels that are likely to cause a disturbance through noise or wash, such as high-speed recreational craft, water skiers, and personal watercraft, further away from intertidal habitats. In such circumstances, mooring areas can provide a positive protection to designated features.
Mooring areas also represent an area where restrictions are in place for human safety reasons, including speed limits and fishing bans. Mooring areas, therefore, represent a haven where impacts that may normally exist in an area are at a reduced level.
In one example, civil law (an injunction) was used to prevent clam fishermen from dredging in a mooring area and damaging the mooring gear after they had extensively fished the rest of the harbor. In this case, the mooring area was effectively a nursery.
Anchoring Styles and Mooring
Boats at anchor have a natural tendency to swing or move from side to side. Also, the wind may change or even reverse direction altogether producing a large diameter circle in which the boat moves.
Whether you use one anchor off the bow, two anchors off the bow, or a bow and stern anchor some amount of swing will inevitably take place. However, between these different anchoring styles, there will be large differences in the amount of swing produced. Let’s take a look at some scenarios:
The greatest amount of swing is produced when we use just a single anchor. This may be a disadvantage of this style of anchoring but it does have its advantages. It’s easy to do, there’s little chance of wrapping the rode around the propeller shaft, and it’s easy to undo. If a situation comes up, especially at night in foul conditions, there is a minimum of work and thought that goes into picking up the anchor and leaving.
Here we have two anchors off the bow. Swing room is less than with a single anchor and holding power is increased. First deploy and set one anchor then, keeping that rode out of the way, motor over to the second spot, drop and set the second. The disadvantage? Often, the rodes will become entangled during the night as the boat swings around.
This is a Bahamian moor; one anchor off the bow and one off the stern or both anchors can be off the bow. The boat stays in one spot with virtually no swing experienced. The advantage is in areas of strong, reversing tidal flows. The boat remains almost exactly in the same place no matter which way the tide is flowing. Always align the boat with the tide, not across the tidal flow.
To set a Bahamian moor motor up current, drop anchor, allow current to bring you back and set the anchor on short scope; 4 or 5 to 1. Then play out more rode until you are twice as far back. Drop the second anchor off the stern and carefully power forward and set it, ending up in the middle.
The disadvantage of this system is the greater likelihood of wrapping the rode around the propeller when you are using the line as part of the anchor rode.
In the Med moor at left the boat drops anchor then backs up to the dock to tie off. This is convenient for boarding at the stern. The boat in the drawing backs to port because of prop walk. Almost all single engine boats have a natural tendency to back to port when the engine is in reverse. If you have trouble backing up to the dock you can take a stern line ashore with your dinghy, push the boat with the dinghy, or first drop someone off at the dock.
For a get-together on the water rafting at anchor is a possibility, just make sure to take precautions. The water must be almost flat with little possibility of waves. Damage to boats can easily occur if one boat’s side moves up while the one next door moves down. The largest boat goes in the middle and sets a large anchor on increased scope. Use plenty of fenders between boats and full sets of dock lines. The masts must be staggered so they won’t entangle each other if the boats start to roll.
Kedging off; we just ran hard aground. Not to worry, there are many alternatives depending on the circumstances. Here, we use our anchor to pull ourselves back into deeper water. This technique works quite well. First, try pulling the boat back the way she came in. After all, you have dug a trench in that direction so it should be easier. Alternatively, you can try to spin her around by using an anchor off the bow. You may think this is easier because you can use your electric windlass, right? Probably not because of the poor angle of pull.
One of the things that don’t seem to work in the above situation is setting the kedge anchor and attaching it to the main halyard in hopes of pulling the boat over thus raising the keel. It doesn’t work well because of the very short scope. With a 50′ tall mast and 10′ of water depth to get even a 5 to one scope, you’d need 300′ of rode out. If you have it go for it. You can easily pull the boat over thus decreasing its draft (depth of the keel below the waterline) by passing a line to another boat attached to your main halyard.
How to pick up a mooring
Picking up a mooring. There will be times when you want to moor instead of an anchor. Moorings are common in many areas including the Caribbean. Moorings are convenient and quick compared to anchoring. Because they are much more secure than an anchor much shorter scope is used with them. Another advantage of the mooring is no damage will be done to any coral or wrecks by your anchor.
Picking up the mooring is a simple matter of slowly approaching it under power and stopping just in front of it. As with anchoring, approach from downwind. Don’t worry if you miss it on your first or second try. Just go around and start again.
At the mooring pick up the eye in the end of the pendant. With a mooring line already attached to one bow cleat, thread it through the eye and back to the other bow cleat. Or, use two mooring lines; each one goes from a bow cleat, through the eye of the pendant, and returns to be cleated to its original bow cleat. The advantage of doing it this way is two-fold; because the eye on the pendant will no longer be slipping along a single mooring line chafe will be negligible and no noise will be created for those sleeping in the forward cabin.
Leaving the mooring buoy is an easy matter of releasing the mooring line(s) at one end then pull them onto the boat and you’re free to go! We usually sail off our mooring as it builds skill. You can do this by first raising your mainsail, cast off the mooring and, once underway, take out the headsail.
Because Lake Tahoe is an interstate waterway, the U.S. Coast Guard mans a station in South Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe offers the full range of beach activities, water sports, sightseeing, marina facilities, fishing opportunities and more. From power boats and sail boats, to jet skis, parasailing and paddle sports, such as canoes, kayaks, paddle boards and more.
Anchoring overnight has long been illegal by California code in all state waters except in designated areas, but the rule was never enforced in South Lake Tahoe.
Taking to the glistening waters for some Lake Tahoe boating is exhilarating and thrilling and comes with a few rules and regulations to keep the experience pleasurable for everyone on the lake.
Despite the generally safe conditions afforded by Lake Tahoe, boaters need to be prepared for dangerous situations. When out in the water, you should ensure your vessel is equipped with the safety equipment required by federal law.
Such items include life jackets, fire extinguishers, a whistle, a bell or horn, a visual distress signal or flare, a ventilation duct allowing for proper ventilation of inboard gasoline engines and a backfire flame arrestor for inboard engines.
Whether your own boat or water sports equipment or are looking to rent or buy or just pick up supplies for mooring and anchoring, you can visit B.J.’s Barge Service in the city of Homewood.