Permanent anchor mooring[edit]

Mooring line of Polish ship Fryderyk Chopin.

These moorings are used instead of temporary anchors because they have considerably more
holding power, cause less damage to the marine environment, and are convenient. They are also
occasionally used to hold floating docks in place. There are several kinds of moorings:

Swing moorings[edit]
Swing moorings also known as simple or single-point moorings, are the simplest and most
common kind of mooring. A swing mooring consists of a single anchor at the bottom of a
waterway with a rode (a rope, cable, or chain) running to a float on the surface. The float allows a
vessel to find the rode and connect to the anchor. These anchors are known as swing moorings
because a vessel attached to this kind of mooring swings in a circle when the direction of wind or
tide changes.
For a small boat (e.g. 22' / 6.7 m sailing yacht), this might consist of a heavy weight on the
seabed, a 12 mm or 14 mm rising chain attached to the "anchor", and a bridle made from 20 mm
nylon rope, steel cable, or a 16 mm combination steel wire material. The heavy weight (anchor)
should be a dense material. Old rail wagon wheels are used in some places (e.g. Clontarf,
Dublin, Ireland) for this purpose. In some harbours (e.g. Dun Laoghaire, Ireland), very heavy
chain (e.g. old ship anchor chain) may be placed in a grid pattern on the sea bed to ensure
orderly positioning of moorings. Ropes (particularly for marker buoys and messenger lines)
should be "non floating" to reduce likelihood of a boat's prop being fouled by one.

Pile moorings[edit]
Pile moorings are poles driven into the bottom of the waterway with their tops above the water.
Vessels then tie mooring lines to two or four piles to fix their position between those piles. Pile
moorings are common in New Zealand but rare elsewhere.
While many mooring buoys are privately owned, some are available for public use. For example,
on the Great Barrier Reef off the Australian coast, a vast number of public moorings are set out
in popular areas where boats can moor. This is to avoid the massive damage that would be
caused by many vessels anchoring.
There are four basic types of permanent anchors used in moorings: [2]
Dor-Mor pyramid-shaped anchors used in mooring

Dead weights are the simplest type of anchor. They are generally made as a large concrete
block with a rode attached which resists movement with sheer weight; and, to a small
degree, by settling into the substrate. In New Zealand old railway wheels are sometimes
used. The advantages are that they are simple and cheap. A dead weight mooring that drags
in a storm still holds well in its new position. Such moorings are better suited to rocky
bottoms where other mooring systems do not hold well. The disadvantages are that they are
heavy, bulky, and awkward.
Mushroom anchors are the most common anchors and work best for softer seabeds such
as mud, sand, or silt. They are shaped like an upside-down mushroom which can be easily
buried in mud or silt. The advantage is that it has up to ten times the holding-power-to-weight
ratio compared to a dead weight mooring; disadvantages include high cost, limited success
on rocky or pebbly substrates, and the long time it takes to reach full holding capacity. [3]
Pyramid anchors are pyramid-shaped anchors, also known as Dor-Mor anchors. They work
in the upside-down position with the apex pointing down at the bottom such that when they
are deployed, the weight of wider base pushes the pyramid down digging into the floor. As
the anchors are encountered with lateral pulls, the side edges or corners of the pyramids will
dig deeper under the floor, making them more stable. [4][5]
Screw-in moorings are a modern method. The anchor in a screw-in mooring is a shaft with
wide blades spiraling around it so that it can be screwed into the substrate. The advantages
include high holding-power-to-weight ratio and small size (and thus relative cheapness). The
disadvantage is that a diver is usually needed to install, inspect, and maintain these
moorings.
Multiple anchor mooring systems use two or more (often three) light weight temporary-
style anchors set in an equilateral arrangement and all chained to a common center from
which a conventional rode extends to a mooring buoy. The advantages are minimized mass,
ease of deployment, high holding-power-to-weight ratio, and availability of temporary-style
anchors.