I'm possibly buying a Cal 20 to club race in spring and fall, and keep on a mooring near our house during 2-3 months of summer for weekending or daysailing. The boat would be kept on a trailer and dry sailed spring/fall, and ideally kept on a mooring in summer. If I wanted, I could have a mooring (4000 lbs.) professionally installed for $2000, but that would be overkill for a Cal 20 for a few months a year, and too expensive at this point.

Any ideas how I could *easily* make a mooring for a boat like this? And reasonably cheaply? A tall order to fill, I know...cheap and easy...;-)

Friend of mine told me yesterday he once made a mooring by filling 8 tires with concrete and setting a PVC pipe in the middle of each and linking them all together with a chain, and then attaching a rope in some manner to the whole thing (a spring/summer mooring for a daysailer Chrysler 22) --he said it lasted a season (not sure why, maybe the concrete cracked?). This idea sounds, to me, (1) overly complicated and hard to do (eight concrete filled tires sounds like a pain in the ass to sink, especially linking them together!); and (2) expensive, if it only lasted one season!

Any ideas...any experience with a simple, cheap, effective summer-only, fairly light-duty mooring for a light boat like a Cal 20? It seems like the main problem is having a flat/stable platform --like a barge or tugboat/launch-- from which to drop/hoist the heavy weight of the mooring...the other question would be, how would I figure out heavy summer-only mooring should to be for such a boat?

Thanks for any thoughts.