If you moor your boat to the bottom of a harbor or bay, you should be aware of the problems found with conventional chain mooring systems.

A conventional mooring system employs a chain to connect the anchor to the buoy. In storm conditions, chain straightens into a rod of steel. Just when you need elasticity in your mooring system, you run out of it.

The traditional heavy chains drag over the sea bottom corroding continually, requiring an inspection every three years. This inspection is necessary to ensure that your mooring and tackle will continue to hold your vessel safely. Thousands of dollars are lost each year due to boats breaking free of their moorings and ending up damaged or doing damage to other boats and docks.

But the biggest problem with chain mooring systems is their impact on underwater life of the harbors or bays they are used in. To compensate for the rise and fall of tides, a chain must have many feet of slack. As your boat moves around the mooring, blown by the wind, the chain drags on the bottom. This will kill everything within a huge circle. The dead zone amounts to many acres, in a busy harbor. Bottom life such eel grass, scallops, clams, and crabs are especially hard hit. To me, this must have an impact on the enviroment the same as large scale strip mining or logging.