I first laid a mooring in the creek at Tollesbury, Essex, in 1973.  That mooring is still in use.  I inspect the top, rising chain every time I pick up the buoy, and every couple of years have a paddle in the mud to inspect the ground chain.

The mooring was beefed up in about 1995, to enable a larger vessel to lay on it for a while.  It is now man enough for a 35ft boat.

I have been informed by the 'Fairways committee' that only two people have their authority to lay moorings, the local boat yard and me!  Apparently that's because our moorings stay put!

Over the years I have seen some horrors, bits of wood buried in the mud in the form of a cross, with chain attached. Silly little concrete blocks, that weigh a lot less in water!  But the best had to be a very, very long rope onto which someone had put figure of eight knots every foot, and between each, a clay 5" flowerpot! about a dozen of them!   Wonder of wonders, it held a 20 ft boat of Leigh on Sea for years!

This is what will you need, for a good mooring, for an Eventide 26, or a WW:-

 2 lumps of cast iron scrap, each weighing 56lb plus and consisting of slabs of iron with holes cast in them to shackle the end of my heavy ground chain round.  Heavier the better, could be several lumps looped onto chain together, makes them easier to transport!

2 large car or lorry rims, approx 15 inch diameter.  Hole in centre big enough to pass the chain through.

1 length really heavy ground chain. Mine was 3/4 inch thick, worn to about 1/2 inch in places.  30ft at least, max about 45ft.  (More than that and you will never move it!)  You could have two shorter lengths and join them with a truly massive shackle in the middle.

1 length riser chain, twice the height of HW at highest Springs.  In my case 22ft.  I used 3/8th chain.  It is normal to use one size larger than your anchor chain.

Swivel.  I now use one of those nice Yellow inflatable buoys with a steel rod and swivel through the middle.  Do make sure it swivels!  Also be very careful to check annually for corrosion on the steel rod!!! I lost one a year or two back, I had asked the borrower using my mooring to check it and perhaps put a chain twixt top and bottom as a temp measure, till I could change it, sadly they didn't and some poor unsuspecting soul must have got a shock when it came off in their hand!

Or. Pick up buoy and  a swivel in the chain, and if you do, fix a buoy to it with the right length of rope, strong stuff, at least 15mm, so that the chain stays in the mud when the boat is not on the buoy, the buoy just holding the rope up.  This way the chain will be preserved in the mud when you are not on the mooring.

Electrical ties.  these are better to work with than seizing wire, do not make holes in hands when you are using them! 

A rough dinghy!  Preferably a hard one, that you can load the kit into and either moor on the spot or push to the mooring spot.  Pushing whilst leaning on the transom is the easiest way of getting about on soft mud.  Either that or you run! stand still for a second and you are bogged down!

A couple of small strong but small spades or large trowels.  Waterlogged mud is very sticky and heavy.

Waders. Wellies get lost!

Bits of scrap board to lay out on the mud, otherwise things disappear!

Parent boat on mud nearby, with buckets of  seawater to wash off in when done.  Even better if you have a 'Killaspray' type shower with hot water too!

Someone on parent boat watching out for you!  Able to put kettle on or pass tools you might need, hacksaw, stilsons etc This is a very important safety point.  In 2005 a man nearly drowned, stuck in the Blackwater mud in one of the creeks

Method.  After establishing the spot, and verifying it with the local moorings man!  Be sure you will have enough room to swing, and that nearby craft are the same sort as you and will lift to the tide at the same time.  Nothing worse than to find another mooring laid too close with a boat that swings at a different time to yours and ends up crashing transoms or worse, every tide!  The damage if there is any weight in boat tide or weather, is terrible.

Hopefully moor the parent craft, on her anchor just a few feet down tide and wait for the tide to sit her on the mud. you will have transferred the weights, and chain etc to the dinghy already, if you did not tow it there in the dinghy.  Beware sinking dinghy! 

Mark out you centre spot, then drag the chain out equally to each side, across the creek.

Figure out where to dig the holes, the tide is falling nicely now, you will have 6 hours to get it all sorted, so there is no tearing rush.  Remember you only want to do this once!

The holes need to be about 2' 6" deep.  So allow that much chain and sufficient to attach iron weights as well.

The hole needs to be as wide as the wheel, plus a bit, as you will find the hole subsides slowly as you go down.  Try not to lose the wellies and the shovel.  After 20 minutes you will see why I suggested a trowel!  I often ended up using my hands!  BEWARE OYSTER SHELLS!!  They are razor sharp!  This is also why a hard dinghy is better, as the shells in Essex mud tend to cut the bottoms out of rubber dinghies.

The car wheel needs to be threaded onto the chain, dished side up, it then will act like a parachute in the mud!  attach the weight and 'mouse' the shackle with either wire, or more often today, an electrical tie.  They do the job, last forever under the mud, and can be undone with a sharp knife in seconds. Seizing wire is OK, but can cut you to blazes, hidden in the mud, when you go back to check later.

Back fill the hole, use the heaviest mud first, back in the bottom, and try not to trap air pockets.

Having got one end in, normally the uphill one, as you can start on that first, letting the tide fall away from you, move over to the lower clump and repeat.

Now move to the middle of the ground chain.  Using a very heavy shackle, fasten the rising chain, the 'Riser' to the 'Ground Chain'.  As I have said, allow twice the depth between bottom and highest Springs.  In Tollesbury it is about 11 ft, so about 22 ft of chain, in my case 3/8th thick links.  Mouse the bottom shackle.

Fasten either a buoy with a swivel, again mouse the pin on the shackle to ensure it cannot work loose.

If you are fixing a rope to the chain, try to splice a line up in advance, with a heavy galvanised thimble, so it can be easily and securely shackled to the end of the chain.  Again mouse the shackle!

I used this system for many years, it worked well.  The rising chain was arranged so it ended just above the water, where a substantial swivel was fitted. This way the swivel did not corrode and seize up, causing chain to shorten and bow to be held down!

Above that and onto the deck was another length of chain with a loop in the end to drop onto the Samson post. 

I have always preferred chain to rope if the boat is left for any time, i.e. more than a day or two.  I spent many years salvaging craft that had been left on rope moorings, broken free and ended up in all sorts of pickles.  

I had a length of 15mm rope, Nylon, so it sank, about 10ft long with a pick up buoy on top.  On picking up the mooring the rope was pulled in till the chain is reached, the chain then dropping onto the post.  The buoy and rope was hung on the pulpit out of the way.

We have finished the Job.

(The only thing I did extra, was to add an another leg on the ground chain, directly up tide and sink an extra wheel and weight in the mud some years later.  As in the diagram above.  This was in case a 35ft boat used the mooring. Just made it all stronger!)

Now you can go and get the anchor from your boat and your crew can haul it back aboard, washing it off with one of the buckets full of water as he does so.  Take a long rope and attach it to your new buoy!  That feels better!

Don't forget to pick up all the tools, the boards etc, and any stray wellies!  The boards will be difficult to remove, I can tell you, the suction of a good bit of Essex mud has to be felt to be believed!

Push yourself back to parent ship and try and clean up. I do not allow myself to step back aboard muddy, even stripping off in the dinghy sometimes, placing the muddy clothes in a bag for later disposal or cleaning!

This is where you find out how good your ladder is and if climbing it in bare feet is to be recommended.  CAREFUL. MUD IS AN EXCELLENT LUBRICANT!!  Many a slip twixt dinghy and muddy ladder!

Hopefully the sun stayed out, not too much, and you can now relax with a clean water shower and a beer, good job done!

As a footnote, I used a light line from the outboard end of the bowsprit down to the chain near the W.L., use a rolling hitch to fasten it.  I used 5mm parachute cord.  This ensured the chain was kept off the topsides if the boat lay awkwardly with the wind against the tide.  If the strain got too much it would break, it never did.  I never scratched my topsides either!

2006, the mooring is still there and still lent to friends.  I use it occasionally, when I want to escape from the world.  Dried out on the Essex mud, (with my new holding tank!),  I can drift back in time and read the 'Magic' to the accompaniment  of just the birds and the breeze..

J.W.

October 2021 John and crew recount the story of the replacement buoy and riser...

Saturday is the Tollesbury Oyster Smack race, hope to be out there for that, then have a quick look into Woodrolfe Creek Tollesbury to check my mooring buoy is still floating!  Not seen it for 2 years!  WhuFlu!!

On Sunday I will be racing over to it from Bradwell, with Keith the brother in law and regular crew.  I have the new mooring buoy and riser etc. already stowed on deck and hoping we can pick up the mooring Sunday evening, before it gets dark and from the dinghy, fish for the ground chain and fasten my new tackle to the really heavy bottom chain, and the new buoy to the boat!  We will cut the chain on the old buoy and drop it into the creek to add to the already considerable weight of chain down there!  Keith suggested towing the old buoy behind us on the way back to clean it off!  (We did!).

Together with Keith, we laid this mooring in the early summer of 1973.  I recall rowing  an old heavy dinghy down the creek on a falling tide,  laden to the gunwales with chain and old lorry wheels, plus a couple of cast iron weights. 

I had laid my hands on some 3/4 chain with a centre ring same diameter, it was immensely heavy!   There were a couple of places in the length of this chain where it was worn to 1/2 inch, which was what I had been recommended, by a local old salt who used to lay moorings, the extra thickness and weight of the 3/4 stuff was a bonus, but I doubt today if I could have even got in into the car, let alone into a dinghy and dug  into the creek! Long time ago, I was so much stronger!

The chain was to be  led through the centre of one of the wheels and secured to one of the cast iron weights. Pulled across the creek and a second hole dug for the other end. All sounded so easy on paper!

We dug the one higher up the slope of the creek first, a 3ft hole to drop the lot into, then back filling and consolidating the mud.   Hand tools only, nothing larger than a trowel!

The chain, about 50ft of it, was then stretched down towards the retreating tideline till we figured out where to dig the second hole.  Repeat procedure.  Seem to recall by then I for one was knackered!  You cannot walk in this mud, you sink.  We laid sheets of old ply on the mud in an effort to stay above it, we lost all the ply!   You have to either run and that is so difficult, or push a boat in front of you, resting on the transom.  You get covered!

We fastened a swivel to the centre ring and 22ft of 3/8th galvanised chain between that and a buoy.  Twice the height of the tide at the top of springs...  That set up lasted a while, with me changing the galvanised chain every few years, getting the old bit re-galvanised if it had not worn and in a couple or few years it rarely had, only the galvanising went.  Had several lengths I cycled..  Those were the days when there were local galvanisers that were willing to slip bits in for a 'consideration'!  That mooring tackle was used for 10 years and never gave me any qualms.  Boat rode out loads of gales on it...    In 1983 I sold my Eventide 'Bluenose' and started on the build of 'Fiddler's Green'.  The mooring was not checked for 7 years whilst I was up to my ears in wood shavings!.  Used by many friends though.

 After 1990 when I launched FG I dried out on it and checked the tackle.

Found the bottom  swivel had nearly worn through and did away with it.   Unsafe. Replaced the 3/8 chain  and instead I fitted a new swivel  to the top end of the chain, where it was easier to check and attached a 11ft length of rope from it  to a pick up buoy.  This meant the chain always lay on the bottom of the creek when the mooring was not in use.  We had found that if the ground chain was left in the mud, that is the original 3/4 chain, it had never worn or corroded in decades, so figured if the riser chain, the 3/8 length, laid in the mud most of the time, would not corrode either, sealed in the mud like the 'Mary Rose'. 

This proved to be the case and the mooring needed little maintenance. 

However one day decided to buy  a  new mooring buoy with a steel rod and swivel running through it,  and a large easy to thread, eye on top....  This was a mistake, as after a few years I went over to Tollesbury to pick up my mooring to find no buoy.   I dried out within a few feet of where I thought the chain should be and as the tide fell fished for it, and found the remains of the steel rod that was once through the centre of the buoy!  Corroded away, 3/4 inch steel!   I removed  the offending rod and re-secured the chain to a 11ft length of rope as before, with a swivel at the top end.  This set up served me well for many years. Then I must have had a mental blank because I  one day found the light rope cut and decided to hoist the chain out of the mud and fit another inflatable buoy with a rod and swivel through it. 

I did check this about 4 years back and decided it was OK, just, but i needed to rethink it. The chain was heavy 3/8 galvanised and had worn  so I was planning to replace in 2020.... Then we went into lockdown and the boat was laid up.

Sunday I hope to replace the chain and buoy with an 8 metre length of approx. 40mm thick 8 plait nylon rope, spliced into an eye at the lower end to fasten to the ground chain and coming up through a large inflatable buoy to another eye above the buoy with a s/s swivel  fitted to it.  The idea is the nylon rope is strong, a 19ton breaking strain!  It  is weighted 1m below the buoy, so the rope should be safe from props, and being nylon it sinks anyway.  The rope is UV proof and underwater and once covered in mud totally UV proof!  The s/s swivel eye will always be above the water so should never corrode and can be checked every time I pick up the buoy.  To make it even easier to pick up the top eye stands tall of the buoy in a plastic collar, (old plastic drain pipe!).  And what with the size of the buoy should be 3ft above water level.  Easy to catch and thread the rope through....

Nylon like this has been used for over 15 years for moorings on the Blackwater and the Crouch and has worked well, stood the test of time.

If I left my boat on a mooring like this, unattended, I always used a length of chain, so carried a length to secure to the buoy if ever I leave F.G. unattended.  Had both ends brought back aboard with shackled loops of chain to drop over the samson post.

For normal mooring purposes I have a permanently fastened 'head rope', on deck, the ships end has an eye splice that is always fitted over the samson post.   This harks back to my days on the London River where a head rope was often needed at a moments notice.  This 'head rope' is approx. 20mm diameter and very strong nylon multi-plait.  It is long, but thoughtfully, not so long that it could foul our own prop, if it was washed over the side!  Another lesson learnt on the London River!   

I use the stbd spare anchor rollers on the bowsprit for mooring and the rope is long enough to loop through any buoys mooring eye and come back the same way and secure with a 'lightermans hitch' to the samson post.  A method that is super secure yet easy to slip.

One last tip. To prevent the metal eye on any mooring buoy touching your topsides,  rig a light line from the buoy to the end of the bowsprit to hold the buoy off the bow! a length of 1/4 inch parachute cord will suffice!

Monday 11th October 2021

No need to say anything much except we were very successful.  New buoy and riser attached to bottom chain. Bottom chain checked and found un-corroded, same as it was nearly 50 years back.  All went like clockwork, great to have Keith aboard, passing spanners and the like.  Reckon the mooring is now good till I am about 90!
    

          

Tollesbury , Woodrolfe Creek and replacement mooring buoy.

John with the help of Keith!