Buoys

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Raydee

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 31, 2003
Messages
451
I am making up some buoys for my local lake and wondering if I should add some lead ballast weight to the bottom section of my pvc pipe? I am not sure if it will need it or not. The bottom pipe will have a cap with a eye hook and the line will be attached to a 3lb brick. The counter weight wil be a 1lb pvc pipe. Its a small man made lake so there is not a lot of current. The buoys will be in the lake all year round.
 

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Also make sure the piece on the end of the rope for the counter balance can slip threw the hoop on the buoy easy. If not the boat cant carry the thing around like a trophy after you hit it.
 
We've found that its really easy to just get a brick or two with holes in it, tie string or light bungie cord through the holes and then wrap the excess around the brick with the buoy attached. You toss it overboard and it automatically sets the length of the string on its way down. I always thought it would be a pain to do every time, but it might take all of 10 mins to toss out when testing. Totally worth it.

We use the buoys in the link below and attach them to a long heavy duty rubber band by looping it through the hole. Then we clip that rubber band to a cheap carabiner that's also tied to the string. A foot or so below the carabiner we put a piece of pool noodle as a sub buoy. That prevents the cord from sinking if you cut the buoy or the rubber band when a boat hits it. Works pretty slick.

We tried leaving sub buoys at a site years ago with concrete weights on the bottom but people ended up messing with them.

Overton's 9" Slalom Waterski Buoy | Overton's (overtons.com)

Brian
 
I really wanted to use the blowup buoys for water skiing but we plan to leave them out all winter long and I am not sure they will hold up.
 
I really wanted to use the blowup buoys for water skiing but we plan to leave them out all winter long and I am not sure they will hold up.
They don't plus boats cut them and they sink. Crab pot buoys will hold up best unless your lake freezes then ice flows will move them all over.
 
I used these hi c jugs with fluorescent marking paint sprayed in them then replaced caps. I am using old supra pistons from a car for the weights . I haven't gotten to try them yet but they do show up well in the water and are light.After reading this post I like the secondary buoy so you dont lose the weight. I wonder if a small balloon over a fishing weight to protect the boat when it hits and yanks the weight through the handle or something like that would work too .
 

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In Houston, we used 12" styrofoam balls... painted them with florescent orange paint...cut them in half and drilled a 1/2" hole thru them...

Boom... two bouys. and they floated flat on the water, nice and easy to see.

We pulled a floating nylon rope up thru the center with a clip tied on one end and double knot on top of the bouy. clipped it on to the sub bouy, easy and ready to go.

Most of the time when a boat just clips them, it will roll off to the side and the bouy stays in place. On a direct hit, it will pull the knot thru the bouy... easy to fix.. because the rope is still floating... retrieve boat clips on a new bouy,, brings in the one that broke away and re-ties it and it's ready to go again.

In the event of a center punch, the styrofoam is soft enough to minimize damage and save some sponsons and boom tubes...

We always kept 5-6 of them on hand, ready to go on race day so it was a quick fix. kept things moving between rounds.

At one time we tried one gallon milk jugs filled with expanding foam.... bad idea..the foam gets pretty hard after a while and can damage boats.
 
In Houston, we used 12" styrofoam balls... painted them with florescent orange paint...cut them in half and drilled a 1/2" hole thru them...

Boom... two bouys. and they floated flat on the water, nice and easy to see.

We pulled a floating nylon rope up thru the center with a clip tied on one end and double knot on top of the bouy. clipped it on to the sub bouy, easy and ready to go.

Most of the time when a boat just clips them, it will roll off to the side and the bouy stays in place. On a direct hit, it will pull the knot thru the bouy... easy to fix.. because the rope is still floating... retrieve boat clips on a new bouy,, brings in the one that broke away and re-ties it and it's ready to go again.

In the event of a center punch, the styrofoam is soft enough to minimize damage and save some sponsons and boom tubes...

We always kept 5-6 of them on hand, ready to go on race day so it was a quick fix. kept things moving between rounds.

At one time we tried one gallon milk jugs filled with expanding foam.... bad idea..the foam gets pretty hard after a while and can damage boats.
That is a great idea how they float flat like that. and they are pretty low to water so easy for boat to skip off. This is a great buoy . I wonder if you could use wooden clothes pins for a pull release. they pull from things pretty easy .I also like the cord around a brick for auto cord length to depth adjust. So many good ideas here.
 
I think we tried clothes pins once, but the waves from the retrieve boat kept pulling them loose..
Use baloons and tye them to the sub surface portion with a rubber band so when a boat hits them you can find where the next baloon goes and NO damage to a boat. this works Great in Huntsville.
Walt Barney
 
I am making up some buoys for my local lake and wondering if I should add some lead ballast weight to the bottom section of my pvc pipe? I am not sure if it will need it or not. The bottom pipe will have a cap with a eye hook and the line will be attached to a 3lb brick. The counter weight wil be a 1lb pvc pipe. Its a small man made lake so there is not a lot of current. The buoys will be in the lake all year round.
Down where I came from in Southern California, we used to use tether balls and tie something on them as an anchor.
 
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