Lika dis-



Careful with the buddy system though - a good current or wind/waves can stretch it further than you wanted and cause havoc.

Getting it set right without looking like a rookie can be a trick the first time or two. My highly scientific method is to usually drop everybody on the beach, push off or motor out to about the spot/depth that looks right, toss the anchor/buddy/buoy over. Try to remember to hold onto the rope. Keep boat idling.

Then hook rope to front cleat, curse at going around the tower with the rope on the wrong side, tie off rope on back cleat, line up and burp throttle in reverse back towards the shore, kill it, bail out with my $5 homemade sand spike T and rope in waste deep (hopefully) water, then let boat drift back out a ways. Curse more at finding the hardest spot on the beach to drive the sand spike in. Spend 10 minutes untangling rope loops. Tie off the boat.

Then pull it back in to test setup and grab beer that was left warming itself in the cupholder, fire up tunes, etc. We always face out for better wave handling, platform loading/unloading and tune displacement.

I've found it's much easier to do this with just one helper either on the beach or in the bow rather than a boat load of obstacles since you have to move pretty quickly - at least in a river current.


Would also recommend a brightly colored floating rope for your beach tie off - way less likely to get tripped over or ran over (or left behind)...