Ed Help me please!

[PatM]

Just getting a message out to Ed Brazil. Someone dragged my two ball onto the other side of the course. It had to take some effort because it is anchored with a 150lb anchor in 2' of silt in 35 feet of water. No damage to the buoy, bungee, adjustment line or sub buoy. Which means someone dove 6' and attached to the main anchor line and dragged it with their boat. So frustrating, 22 years and no incident until I went to ski this morning.

[MISkier]

.

[MISkier]

Is the problem dragging it back or determining how to re-measure it?

[PatM]

Both

[Andre]

Sorry about that.

There's no magical way.You gonna have to drag it back in place and measure.

Maybe measuring first,drop a lighter anchor with bouy just beside the real spot,drop the 150 pounds bouy anchor as close as you can of the right spot and finetune position afterward.

Tie a temporary rope 6' under to move anchor around.Finetuning it in the water is gonna be at least a 2 guy jobs with a couple pfds or lying on tube.

Getting it back close to original spot could be done from the platform.

Good luck!

[Wish]

Sorry to hear about this. I feel your pain. Some after the fix advice. To stop it from happening again make the vandalism high profile. Sounds like a local that knew what they were doing. I made my course damage high profile with lake owners and police. Filed a police report for vandalism and informed homeowners association of the filing and placed a leaflet in the driveway of every waterfront owner informing them of "lake vandalism" (did not say what the vandalizme was). Leaflet suggested that they should keep personal items near waters edge sacure and that both the police and homeowners association were informed of crime. Also included police phone number. The buzz on the lake was humming within a day.

[MISkier]

I think if your boat guides and balls 4 and 6 are still in place (and were originally accurate), you can use those to get the position visually by aligning the buoy with those longitudinal and latitudinal reference lines. To verify it, you would be swimming with a tape measure or using some sort of surveying equipment.

 

Dragging it back it basically going to be the same operation that got it to where it is now.

 

One bright spot: they apparently left the buoy on and you were able to locate the moved anchor easily enough. I've had course parts disappear completely when someone wrecked my floating course.

[oldjeep]

Seems like a lot of work to mess up a course. You sure that someone didn't get their anchor stuck and moved it around trying to pull it loose?

[PatM]

@Wish Unfortunately I just found out from a neighbor about some "action" in that spot in the course last night and now have a good idea of how it was. I know the father quite well and the ski club will be approaching him about it. But I may put out your idea on the lake Facebook account. I may hold off on the police in respect for the father. We'll see how it is handled and let the father know that this may be a possibility.

[skihart]

I would be very careful about pointing fingers. Remember that to most people a course is nothing but an eyesore and a reason for people to drive up and down the lake at 34mph. Take the high road and get people on your side. If you don't have concrete proof do not accuse anybody. If you do talk to the father say that maybe his son got an anchor mistakenly caught in the course and maybe they could lend a hand putting it back. Been there done that.

[MISkier]

One other thing about direct confrontations: they may make people register formal complaints about the course. In Michigan, that is all it takes to revoke a course permit.

[PatM]

@oldjeep‌ I believe they anchored to my line at the sub and forgot that they were attached. The eyewitness strongly believes there was drinking involved.

 

@skihart‌ and @MISkier‌ I will not be confrontational with the father (he is an old friend of over 30 years and we never have had a problem). I just want to let him know about it so it doesn't happen again and I believe when he finds out it won't. I have learned through the years to be non-aggressive about course matters through the years.

[PatM]

I did reach Ed and hopefully we will have it up to accurate within a couple weeks. Thanks for all the help. I will be trying to get it back as close as possible in the mean time so if anyone has any more ideas to get it back it will be much appreciated.

[mwetskier]

you should be able to use the 4 ball and 6 ball for length wise alignment plus the boat gates for perpendicular alignment and get quite close with a single 8 x 16 inch concrete block for a temporary buoy. The 35 feet of water might make it a little frustrating for a while until you get it perfect but maybe a half hour of two guys in pfds dinking around a bit.

[Andre]

.

 

[davidgree1]

If the water wasn't so deep I'd say you could find the indentation in the lake bottom where the concrete sat. Anybody with scuba gear?

[PatM]

@davidgree1‌ My ski partner scuba dives, but it is dark as a ... down there. 30-35 feet deep. Clean clear water though. Unfortunately I wonder if there would be an indentation after the anchor being dragged. Also about 2' of silt at the bottom

[PatM]

Success!! We dragged the anchor back to near the location and was able to get it so close I can't tell without surveying it. I will still have Ed out to shoot it to make sure it's right, but in the mean time skiable for sure. Thanks for the advise it made for an unexpectedly easy 10-15min job. We were laughing about how close it was when we finished.

[Edbrazil]

Probably going there to check on it mid-week next week, when I get back from

doing the "Snowbird" number over Winter & Spring.

 

A few other projects are waiting when I finally settle back in NH until sometime

in the Fall and before the snow flies and lakes freeze.