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- Jul 18, 2011
- Messages
- 17,620
I have been wanting to get a mast buoy this season to make snagging the mooring easier. I saw a mast buoy at West Marine a while ago, but it was a little pricey, so I waited.
This weekend while scrounging stuff in the shed and garage, I came across some 6' fiberglass rods . . . they look like driveway markers for the winter. Well, I thought to myself, what a great thing to make a mast buoy out of :thumb:
So, I scrounged up some hardware. . . found a thimble, some galvanized rod, plastic wiring shield, PVC pipe, and also sacrificed part of a floating 'noodle' to the cause. I assembled everything with a can of 'Great Stuff' foam, as it is a great adhesive. I also needed a significant weight for the bottom of the buoy. So, I used some cement that I had and formed a weight around the lower part of the 'mast'.
Here is a picture of what I came up with . . .
I float tested it in a trash can to make sure there was enough weight and flotation. Then I wrapped the cement weight in fiberglass/resin that I had left over from other projects.
Here is the mast buoy after the fiberglassing . . .
Then to finish the thing off, I painted the lower portion with polyurethane.
Now I can run a line from one of my mooring pennants to the mast buoy, so it will be easy to grab from the deck of the boat. Currently I have to reach down in the water with a mooring hook . . . some time it goes better than other times.
The mast buoy draws about 18" of water and has an overall height of just over 6 feet.
Since I used things that I had lying around, my out-of-pocket cost was $0.00
This weekend while scrounging stuff in the shed and garage, I came across some 6' fiberglass rods . . . they look like driveway markers for the winter. Well, I thought to myself, what a great thing to make a mast buoy out of :thumb:
So, I scrounged up some hardware. . . found a thimble, some galvanized rod, plastic wiring shield, PVC pipe, and also sacrificed part of a floating 'noodle' to the cause. I assembled everything with a can of 'Great Stuff' foam, as it is a great adhesive. I also needed a significant weight for the bottom of the buoy. So, I used some cement that I had and formed a weight around the lower part of the 'mast'.
Here is a picture of what I came up with . . .
I float tested it in a trash can to make sure there was enough weight and flotation. Then I wrapped the cement weight in fiberglass/resin that I had left over from other projects.
Here is the mast buoy after the fiberglassing . . .
Then to finish the thing off, I painted the lower portion with polyurethane.
Now I can run a line from one of my mooring pennants to the mast buoy, so it will be easy to grab from the deck of the boat. Currently I have to reach down in the water with a mooring hook . . . some time it goes better than other times.
The mast buoy draws about 18" of water and has an overall height of just over 6 feet.
Since I used things that I had lying around, my out-of-pocket cost was $0.00
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