Moorings

Basically a mooring is a much heavier anchoring device as you only put it in the water once, check the chain and thimbles once a year and get someone to lift the lot every few years.

The mooring on our boat is two large train wheels with 25mm chain around them then attached to 20mm chain and them rope. It's in a muddy bottom so the only way to lift and check the lot is with a big boat and use the tide.

Our anchor is big but not too big that we couldn't pull it manually if the winch died.

We have had 60 knots and water breaking over the bow on our mooring and she hasn't moved, wouldn't like to do that on the anchor.

Mooring can also be grid setups where all the boat in an area are joined together, usually with large concrete blocks or piles dropped into the sea floor.

Out of interest most moored boats that end up on the rocks/beach after a storm have not dragged their moorings or broke the mooring but pulled the cleat/sampson post out of the deck!!!

Moorings have a swivel that enables a yacht to change direction with the tide etc. Anchoring is fine for long periods in this country in most places. Anchor rodes don't have swivels normally and the rode will become twisted with the change of tides and shorten up the rode. Occasionally there will be a swivel where the anchor joins the rode but that is for ease of stowing. The swivel would be buried in the bottom on normal anchorages. Some anchors pull out on tide changes and may or may not reset. Its not normal practice to leave a boat unattended at anchor for this reason.

Moorings will normally be under the mud or sand with a swivel above the bottom.
Locally boats that come off moorings is usually because of chafe where the riser comes over the bow roller. Wind against tide and the yacht sails up the mooring and the riser wears on the side of the bow roller mount.

I believe if you set a large anchor and then buoy it rather than raise it on board, it then becomes classified as a mooring and if not licensed could get you into deep water. Pardon the pun.

I suspect here in NSW you would not get away with it. All safety and holding powre of moorings v anchors aside I suspect that NSW Maratime would be onto it very quickly because if you are anchoring instead of having a mooring they are missing out on $$ and they wouldn't like that.
In many high demand mooring areas there is actually a wailting list to get a mooring. It's all very tightly controlled by NSW Maratime and I have regularly seen them checking moorings and registration numbers etc where I have my yacht on Lake Macquarie. How long you could get away with it will probably depending on where you are. If it is some out of the way place you might manage it for a while.