EZ Ed - Portable Course Anchor Question

[SpartanSki]

I lost one of my river anchors for my EZ slalom course during a recent move (how I lost a giant chunk of metal, I don't know). Has anyone used a blade style anchor for the first anchor? Since we're dropping it and tensioning the course, can a standard blade anchor be used, and as the course is pulled tight won't it "set"? Or am I better off dumping down some more weight. It is a silt bottom if that helps.

 

Thanks

Blain

[A_B]

We pulled a good-sized boat anchor tight with the rear eye on the boat transom about 30 years ago. It hasn't budged. I would hate to see how far down in the muck it is..

[Ed_Obermeier]

A blade or digger type anchor (such as a fluke or chene type anchor), depending on your bottom conditions, will probably work at the beginning end of the course. You just need to drag it enough to get it to set (dig in) before installing the course. As you know if the first anchor doesn't hold you're not going to get good tension on the mainline so make sure you have it set before proceeding. A couple of feet of heavy chain attached to the anchor to hold the blades down as you drag it will help. This type anchor sucks to haul around in your boat but if it keeps you from having to buy one use it.

 

Ed @ EZ-Slalom

[SpartanSki]

Thanks guys, I'll give it a try. Ed, what is your preferred method to tension? We put up the entire course where we want it and throw the end anchor. Then we have a second rope that attaches to the end anchor and we drag a short way until tight.

[Killer]

@spartanski I dont see how you can get away without using a tension line, that is how Ed sells his portable systems. We had the EZ course in over 100' of water and it was a rock/sand bottom, It was difficult getting both anchors to set, so we actually ended up putting a few hundred pounds of concrete in on 1 end permanently, with a buoy we would clip off/on and attach the main line to when we put the course in, also tied another rope to it for the winter and ran it on shore. Sure helped in the time setting up the course when you dont have to drag an anchor, esspecially since we were using over 400' of anchor lead (4:1 line to depth).

 

We would line the course up, set the anchor, then give it tug for a few seconds in gear, stop, and repeat a few times. We found that the small tugs and resting worked best to get it to line up and when wind came up it would stay more straight. We also found it would line up better when we only put the gate sections of pvc in, and attach the buoy arms after it was lined up. hope that helps

[Ed_Obermeier]

@SpartanSki that sounds right to me. Just like with the anchor lead ratio you want that same 4 - 1 minimum ratio for the tensioning line attached to the 2nd anchor. That way the anchor stays on the bottom and you're dragging it across the bottom rather than picking it up and ploping it back down. Better results that way, grabsand locks in quicker.

 

I hang onto the 2nd anchor and have the driver take some but not all of the slack out of the course and get it fairly aligned before I pitch the 2nd anchor, then fine tune with the tensioning line as described by @killer above.