Have you ever built a permanent beach VB court?

try calling up a local volleyball club, or a volleyball facility around you that has sand courts (or the nearest big city), they might be able to help you with ideas. 

i've played on everything from professional grade courts to home-made courts with cemented tires holding up the poles.

Putting concrete in a sand environment is not something I have experience in, but surely there is an engineer in here that could answer your question.  Or find a very good concrete contractor in your area to ask.  I am pretty sure you could dig it out deep enough to get a secure pole but making the insert work properly and not rust in place during the 8 or 9 months it is in the ground might be a problem.  Working for a YMCA we have metal inserts in the ground that we use for soccer fields that are in the outfield of our softball and baseball fields and I can tell you that the 60 days that they are in the ground is too long and we have tried grease to keep them separate.

If you are using non VB anchoring system, then I would suggest schedule 80 steel pipe for the extra thickness/strength.  I have seen it done with both and understand why they used 80 instead of 40.  But ours were permanent and were 48" under the ground for strength of the support and no support wires were needed.

Couple of random thoughts on this:

To dig down, you might need to set up a coffer dam around your pole area. Maybe plywood and 2x4 forms to hold sand back as you dig.

Maybe use concrete to make a footing several feet deep, or a steel plate or pre-formed blocks.

I'm thinking PVC won't rust, but weathering may crack and shatter it.

Regardless of what you put in, use threads on the ends and cap them when the poles aren't installed. (And leave the tops of the receptacles several inches down to help avoid a tripping hazard.)

attached is my idea for your volleyball setup.

use 2; 1 1/4" dia. x 10ft galv. pipe with a galv. coupling and cap. The lower pipe will need to be cut down.

use a 10" dia x 36" ht sonotube to pour concrete into and set lower pipe into (keep pipe 3" from bottom of pour) back fill around sonotube and pipe with sand once concrete is set.

note: footing is set below 60" due to frost depth in Michigan.

note: when digging for footing, sand has an angle of repose of 45degrees (meaning 14' dia. hole at finish grade to get down 7' depth) so dig down about 4' (a square hole works best) and shore up sides with plywood then dig last 3ft.

the galv. coupling is about 18" below grade to allow removal and no trip hazard during winter.

drill holes in top pipe for eyelet bolts to mount net.

I am probably forgetting something but this is what you get for free.

(netpole.jpg)

We made one in Iraq using the tire idea.. But we used humvee tires for more weight and more concrete. To make it look nice we actually dug the tires under the sand so we wouldnt be tripping over these huge tires. It worked out well and we never had any issues with the posts getting knocked over. They even survived a mortar attack.

Digging a hole and trying to use a concrete tube would be pretty difficult. I would just go with finding a bigger tire and filling it with concrete and setting the post. That way you can still take it down before winter. All the other ideas are pretty spot on too.

A Sonotube <brand name> is a thin cardboard like hollow tube that you place on the ground, then pour concrete into to create a simple round footing. This method is used quite often in creating footings for decks. The volleyball pole is basically the same concept as a post on a deck.

If you put anything into the ground it will have to be deep enough to be beyond the frost line. If you do not go below the frost line, the freeze/ thaw cycle will push what ever you put in the ground up and around over time. If you do not care if the poles are not perfectly vertical or sink over time, then just sink the pole 1/3 of the exposed height - this instance 9'ht exposed means roughly 3' below grade.

Bully, what size pipe do you recommend?  This is basically by go to plan, but I am looking for simpler ways to do it without the shovel time.  Its not possible to get any machinery on the beach side of the house.  >

Thomaski, this is sort of my alternate plan.  Its what I call a ground anchor, similar concept to ways to get a jeep unstuck with no other connecting point for winch.  Were you able to get enough tension on the net?

Thanks all for your responses.

1 1/4" dia. x 10' length galvanized pipe... you should be able to get it at any Lowe's or Home Depot. Just look in the plumbing department.

If you don't want to shovel, l would set up the pipes and coupling to be a 12' length - connect the coupling to the shorter pipe and use a sledge hammer to drive the pipe into the sand about 2ft 6in to 3ft. Put a small block of wood over the end of the pipe so when hammering you do not blunt the pipe or threads.

BTW... You may want to spray paint the posts, over time and being exposed to the rain and morning dew the pipes will rust. You may also want to put some grease on the threads going into the coupling. This will make it easier to remove the posts... not to mention tighten them by hand so that you can get them apart more easily.

Thanks.  I was concerned that a smaller diameter metal pipe would allow too much flex and I wouldn't be able to hold a tight line on the net.  If I went with a more rigid pipe, then I was getting concerned with the weight of them and moving them in and out with the seasons.  I'll use turnbuckles or something of the like to tension the net.  

that sounds pretty small in diameter.  You could try fence gate posts for more rigidity.

Earlier this morning I was checking out some thinner gauge 2" that I had in the back of our warehouse.  I guess my mind was telling me that going much larger ID would not be very manageable due to weight, but this stuff was pretty light.  I'm guessing it was about 14 gauge, which is still too thin though.  Are gateposts ~2"?

not to mention salt.

I think volleyball setups typically use aluminum simply because the beach is a highly corrosive environment.

Its fresh water beach if it makes a difference.  

Por15 on the inside and out with a top coat of something the kids would like?

More like 4" or 6" diameter for gate or corner posts, which is what you will want in this case.  You can lift them up they aren't solid steel.

You will also need to embed  the pole more than 2' into the ground for that long of a pole.  I would go at least 3' to 3.5'.

Fence posts are galvanized so that shouldn't be a concern

Can I still drive a pole like that into the ground though?  I can hammer a smaller dia pole deep enough, I think.  I'm concerned that getting up to 4-6" would be too difficult.  I assumed I would use a fence post setter on the smaller dia poles.