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When you first put your gear in the water, it might appear nice and tight. But over time you may notice that as lines become a little slack, the array can start to flag, meaning developing a slight curve rather than being in a straight line. Your gear will naturally stretch out when it’s exposed to the forces of the ocean, and having to re-tension your lines a few times throughout the season is pretty common. Bear in mind that your gear will look different at different stages of the tide. If you can, try and remove slack from the system at low tide. Then come high tide, the system will only become tighter and more stable in the water.
In this video, Bren describes how you can do a quick visual check to identify if there is slack in your arrays.
Adjust the tension of your arrays in one of two ways: by adjusting your anchor placement or shortening the distance of your lines. If you’re using fluke anchors, adjust their placement by hooking on to the tagline and dragging each anchor away from the other to pull tension on the system. If you’re using a fixed anchor, like a mushroom anchor or concrete block, you can adjust the length of the growline itself by shortening it at the connection point to the anchor line.
Watch this video of pulling tension on an array on the GreenWave farm. Notice how the center buoy comes into alignment when the array pulls tight.