How do you place a buoy?

[Matt S.]

The other day I went out to a site with a friend, but the five year old web page that we referred to described a buoy that was no longer present. This irritated me and I got to thinking that placing/replacing buoys would be a good activity for my dive club. I floated the idea (ow, sorry) to the club and got some interest.

Then I realized, hey, I'm the new guy with 40 dives and I don't know the first thing about placing a buoy, much less one that robust enough to tie a boat to.
I just figured out how to deploy a marker for a blue water safety stop so messing around with concrete blocks and lift bags is a bit out of my league.

Still, as the guy with the big mouth it will be my responsibility to research this and organize it if I want to see it happen. Are there any good references or standard procedures out there?

I assume that you could make an anchor light enough to chuck overboard, which would be suitable for a marker buoy only, relatively easily. But something heavy enough to tie a boat off to, that's another story. I guess.

(There was actually a segment on that on Dirty Jobs. In episode #62, "Well Digger," they placed a 1000 lb concrete anchor. Pretty neat.)

If you have any leads I would love to see them. TIA. All I know so far is that buoys are $15 at the local fisherman's supply store.

 

[DennisS]

There are companies that sell used railroad wheels. A ring welded to the wheel provides an attachment point. It might be a little bit of overkill for a $15 buoy. The wheels are about 800-900 pounds each.

If you could get it delivered to the boat ramp and forklifted off you could put rollers (pipes) under it and lift bags to get it out. The depth from 6 inches to 2 ft might give you some problems until the lift bags pick up the load.

TAO/TRITON Photo: Two railroad wheels are used to anchor the buoy
(that's two sets of three wheels each)

Then again it might be easier to find the original anchor. Who placed it, did they take a gps fix.

 

[Doc]

(There was actually a segment on that on Dirty Jobs. In episode #62, "Well Digger," they placed a 1000 lb concrete anchor. Pretty neat.)
All I know so far is that buoys are $15 at the local fisherman's supply store.

First, buoys are free. They come from those 148 ounce laundry soap containers. The best way to hang a buoy has got nothing to do with it's ultimate function. From the weight, a length of polyethelene rope should be run, it floats and it should reach (just reach) the surface. It will always be there to mark your anchor even when the inevitable doofus destroys your mooring.

Secondly, the stuff you saw on Dirty Jobs made absolutely zero sense. A concrete weight should be poured with PVC tubes inside and running through- make a donut! Through these holes in the concrete, one runs a chain. Dirty Jobs had you pouring weights wih eye hooks built into the concrete. When that iron rots, what then? When a chain rots, you just run another through the pre-existing hole. KISS.

Now they went through all sorts of paraxysms of air bags and moving the weights. All well and good, but could you have dropped them any further away? Pretty dramatic stuff. They had a show to fill... and a tank to drain. (Imagine an OOA with an AGA Mask? Boy- that gives me the willies!)

We have often poured the concrete directly into forms and let the sea water mix and then cure them in 10 feet of water. After they are ready, you don't need the high tech stuff Mike used with all of the lifting capacity. You just hook up to them, lift them from the bottom with not much of a winch and davit, then just "float" them to their final position.

This is how (almost) every dive site on the South side of Roatan was set.

KISS

What line to use above the few feet of lead chain? Depends upon the boat, the weight of the anchor and the kind of seas it was designed to acomodate.

 

[Chad Carney]

Matt,

I've watched the buoys come and go off our coast for 30 years. We had an Artificial Reef Program here in Pinellas County that not only created the reefs, wrecks etc, but also placed two kinds of buoys.

1. Marker only buoys. Usually larger and more durable with large heavy duty chain and concrete 2000 pound weights. These were never made to be tied up to.

2. Smaller marker buoys, sometimes on the same site, that were designed to be mooring buoys.

The problem is they both go away in big storms.

The tie up type also are difficult to keep clean of barnacles, fishing tackle etc.

My opinion is that if you are in an area where anchoring is allowed, it's not much of an issue. You just want to know where the site is exactly.

In the days of early Loran and Selective Availability GPS, buoys were pretty helpful.

Now accurate GPS coordinates are all most need. The problem there is the amount of garbage coordinates floating around.

Still a nicely placed buoy with a club flag on it could have some good PR!

Chad

 

[Matt S.]

Secondly, the stuff you saw on Dirty Jobs made absolutely zero sense.

I was wondering about that too. The eye hook in particular didn't make sense at all.

With regard to GPS coordinates, good point, but they aren't always available if the site has been "lost" for a little while.

But mostly placing a buoy sounds like fun, I think. In the Puget Sound I don't think we get the kind of weather that would wreck them too, but I could be wrong.

Thanks for the info!