Portable slalom course, shallow water with weeds

[IheartJump]

I just put in a portable slalom course I'm borrowing. We had 3 people and it wasn't too bad to get the arms laid in, but I was under the incorrect assumption that I'd be able to dump the whole course in and pull it tight and be ready to go. The shallow water and weeds would not allow that to happen, so I think i've got a strategy that would work well and wanted to share it and see if anyone else has done it this way:

 

Install gates only from one end to the other, but keep the buoy lines wrapped around the PVC so the "diamonds" are floating on the surface, not 3-5 feet below.

 

Pull that tight and straight.

 

Then go back and attached the turn buoy arms and sink the diamonds and arms.

 

Anyone done it this way before? Or have a better method?

 

The water is only about 3.5 feet in some places so even without the weeds I think the PVC bows and drags in the sand. Pulling tight after the arms are attached sends the course totally wonky.

 

 

[Edbrazil]

With floating courses, I tend to just do the gate diamonds first, then attach the PVC arms

after it has been pulled semi-tight. I've been using 2.5 inch PVC for the gate diamonds,

and then 2 inch for the arms. Schedule 40 in both cases. 2 inch fits inside of 2.5 inch.

2.5 can be hard to find, though. Final tightening after attaching the arms.

 

In any case, with the shallow water and with weeds, it is pushing the envelope. ?Maybe

use the floater course as a temporary template and drop bottom anchors?

[BraceMaker]

My opinion is that since it is so shallow ditch the anchors.

 

Get the course in "roughly" and at one end drive a long auger into the bottom.

 

The idea being that at one end your course really isn't "adjusted" set the fixed end stationary and that will establish the course.

 

Then lay out the course and put tension on it at the other end.

 

Idle back through and arm by arm free it up, you'll need to shorten the bouy lines so the arm does not hit the bottom at any point.

 

If you start with one end "fixed" then as you lay out the course you aren't dragging the arms through the water, so they won't be pulled as out of wack.

 

[A_B]

Set all your buoys lines at 3-3.5' (shallowest point), and clip or tie the buoys direct to the screw eyes (leaving slack buoy lines dangling) on your pvc pipe, which will float the course at the surface, pull tight, then un clip the buoys. You may need to jockey the pvc around the weeds so they are not hung up and the full 3-3.5 feet below surface. If you are tensioning at one end, start at the farthest end, unclip buoys so it drops, then add tension, then unclip the next section, add tension, and repeat going toward your tensioning point.

 

We used metal angle iron in a beaver pond in NY years ago, as that would sink better to the bottom. The pvc is so light, it can hang up in the weeds and not settle.

 

Sprinkle some weed killer in after use this summer, and hopefully weeds will thin out for next year or by the end of the season.

[Jez_NR]

Not sure whether you can anchor on the bank, if you can I would.

 

I have had best results by anchoring one end as normal and then laying out the whole course with all booms and buoys, but with very short string or cable ties in addition to the regular buoy lines, so the whole course is 3" below the water.

 

Extend the course using rope or cable and a series of small weights so that it will ultimately stay on the bottom all the way on to the bank.

 

Then tighten the course till straight and after cut each string / cable tie (taking care not to drop them in the lake), ideally from a kayak or rowing boat so the buoys don't get pulled around. The course will then drop and remain straight.

[oldjeep]

We had a setup at a place we used to rent for a week each summer. Always used to drop the whole course in, balls and all. Tighten as best we could and then walk on each arm until it settled in the weeds. Once they all settled we would grab the end anchor and re-tighten the course.

 

It was always a big pain to get the course back out now that it was all wrapped in weeds.

[GOODESkier]

You could...... make a little device to cut and pull the weeds. Then set all buoy lines to that 3.5 feet depth so everything floats level. Agree, if you can put a perminant anchor in on one end, less dragging of that anchor will happen. BE CAREFUL not to break the PVC arms by pulling too hard. They can and will fold!

[skosney]

Weeds or not, your strategy is a sound one that we employed for years and is especially helpful when dealing with weeds and lack od depth.

 

If possible / allowable, once you have the course set, I would place permanent anchor below each buoy location as the starting point for a permanent course. With water that shallow it would be a snap and easy to fine tune the measurements with tape measure.

[IheartJump]

any tips for underwater installation of augers?

 

straight up and down installation as deep as possible? or at the angle it'll be pulling?

 

How do you get the downforce to install? weight belt / cinderblocks?

[MISkier]

@IheartJump, where are you located? If you are anywhere that freezes and the bottom of your lake is soft, I would auger the portable course anchor in through the ice at 3.5' deep. You ought to be able to attach something to power auger to run in a screw anchor while standing on the ice.

 

And, actually, if I were doing it, I'd lay the portable on the ice as a template and drill holes at the buoy and boat guide locations. Then, I'd probably use all screw anchors and subs or duck bill anchors and subs to get a permanent installation.

[kstateskier]

Surely @Ed_Obermeier‌ has some knowledge and professional opinions to share at some point. He can probably provide you with some helpful tips.

[BraceMaker]

in 3.5' of water its not really a situation, I've done them in 10 feet.

 

Trick is to start the auger and get it straight up and down, then put a section of pipe through the eyelet and spin it around.

 

In 10 feet its a pain, you dive down grab the bar and give it between 1/2 and 3 turns before you run out of air, then you surface and breath and repeat.

 

Eventually you get the auger turned a few times and it has a bite in the ground, afterwhich you can tie a bouy to it and pull yourself down to the auger feet first, which saves a lot of messing around.

 

 

In 3.5 feet the auger can be started with your head more or less above water, once the auger gets down you'll have to start dunking and giving it a few turns, and depending on the bottom material, occasionally you have to get a pipe ~4' long and walk around and around in circles pulling the end of the bar with a rope.

 

You can avoid this by making a heavy concrete anchor with some PVC holes and drive rebar through it, I like augers because they don't stub toes.

[lpskier]

I un-spool the cable from a hose spool (playing out from the swim platform) and clip on the arms as the cable comes off the spool. Wrap the buoys around the arms to keep them close to the surface until you snuggle up the tension once all arms are on. Then put the finishing touch on tightening. Put a large detergent bottle about half way out on each anchor line. Their efforts to come to the surface will keep the course tight as the water level fluctuates. If you are in really shallow water, the self tightening system may present prop/bottle/anchor line issues, so you will have to see what you have to work with and be the judge from there. If you have the option, lay out the course from up wind to downwind.

 

If the course sits on the bottom, it will be a lot of work to get it right, and you may be better off with a block course. I would use concrete filled chimney block rather than screw anchors. Block is easier to adjust if you decide to get the course surveyed. If you plan ahead you can also have an actual setting and a narrow-side-of-in-tolerance setting. The narrow setting can be helpful when learning to run your hardest passes.

[Ed_Obermeier]

IMO @Edbrazil has the best suggestions but a lot of good info in addition to Ed's post. Only thing I would add to any of the above would be to reiterate that you need to make sure the mainline and arms are not in contact with the bottom at any point and that they're not bound up in the weeds. A floating course by it's nature has to be "floating" and free of contact with anything else (bottom, weeds etc). Otherwise it quickly can become a huge PITA to keep it right, to say nothing of the potential maintenance issues.

 

I'm with Ed and several others who suggested you use the portable a template to permanently anchor in each buoy individually. IMO in water that shallow ultimately that would be the best solution.

[Zman]

We faced the same issues last summer with lots of weeds, but not quite so shallow 4.5 to 5.5 feet. After a fall treatment of herbicide and about 450 carp, the course is straight this year, and I am not coming out of the water covered in vines of seaweed. For about 2 months last year is was often not skiable, this year - sweet!

Not really adding anything to say we also kept the course cables near the surface while pulling tension. As soon as I have locked in the best boat path, I have a long auger to permanently fix one end as also suggested. At that point I will also consider all permanent anchors.

[gsm_peter]

We have mud so we put in steel pipes (Scaffolding?).

One per boie.

 

Connect a few feet of plastic chain to each pipe and then shock cord and then the boie.

Easy to adjust when water level changes.

The pipes are under the ice so they have stayed in place for 30 + years now.

Just dive down and connect the bois in the spring (water is a bit unpleasant)

 

 

 

[behindpropellers]

You can make a pipe that looks like this that will fit over your pipe with the auger to screw it in. You will need a bolt or something in your auger pipe. Just put a zip tie over it so your auger will not fall out.