Anchor security

Renegade_Master

Renegade_Master

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I have brought this subject up before as I had heard of it happening to several people and yesterday to me.

You are going along in heavy head seas 2-3m waves when suddenly a rumbling noise is heard and the anchor and chain decide, for reasons best known to themselves to head for the sea bed. The consequences of not realising and not stopping the boat are alarming as happened to one guy.

It does not happen on our shool boats as we have a lanyard fitted to the anchor as part of the MCA coding.

Now it occured to me why on the £900,000 boat I was driving did not the manufacturer fit one as standard?

I believe they should be standard on all vessels

Question 1 Has this happend to you?

Question 2 Has this happened to anyone you know if so how many?
 
It happened to a freind of mine two years ago, who has a similar Birchwood to me.
If you know the Birchwood 35 Sportsman and/or S35, you will know that the anchor is held vertically up in a tube against the bow and held up on the winch.
Coming back from an outing in the Bristol Channel in a lively sea, the winch gave way letting out just about 3ft of chain...with the result that the Anchor was banging against the bow whacking a hole in it just on the waterline.
Boat flooded to about 1 metre of water inside, had to be rescued and towed by the lifeboat.
It's all fixed now, but only after most of the furniture/flooring in the forward cabin, galley and midships cabin was replaced...plus a rewire.
Needless to say I always use a lanyard now plus a coachbolt through the chain to stop the anchor falling.

Steve.
 
Read an account from a Broom owner who sufferred speed loss during a passage in lumpy conditions up north. He couldn't understand what the problem was and when he got into the Humber he discovered the full length of cable and anchor was out!!

Very lucky not to have sufferred serious mishap.
 
My anchor fitting has a captive pin that fits through the shank of the anchor locking it in place. Seems like a good idea. I thought all stemhead fittings had the same.
 
Hi Clive

Yep - we made up a strap earlier this year when the guy who helps me with the antifouling said that he'd just come back from fixing a brand new Squadron that hadn't seen it's anchor had slipped - the damage to the hull from the anchor and chain was significant.

It wasn't until Phil showed me on your course last month that the "gipsy" is only connected to the winch with a simple clutch that I realised how important this is.
You guys in the Med must think this trivual but we only use the winch for anchoring. Until the course, I hadnt realised how easy it is to slip the chain with a winch handle - indeed the boat didnt even have a winch handle on board.

She does now.

Thanks
Mike
 
i have a pin going thru the anchor to secure it but when my skipper came on board for the trip from Essex to Greece last year he insisted on tying the anchor back into the cleat on top of the windlass.

He said he had often experienced anchors going for a wander in calm or heavy seas...and we were guaranteed some heavy seas for the trip.

The fact that this was one of the first things he did seems to underline how often.

Now that the boat is in the Med and we anchor often I only use the pin but I often glance at the anchor to make sure everything is still there.
 
Hm, bit poor Clive - you should reallyhave checked this before setting off on new-to-you planing boat. I do. I checked your skool boat too. It is the one way that an otherwsie-going-nicely boat could end up utterly knackered with no props and no anchor.
 
Avoid pins through the shank

On any large boat using a good amount of chain, a chain-stop should be installed between the windlass and the bow-roller in any case, to take stress off the windlass when at anchor. The chain stop will also stop the anchor disappearing off the bow completely if it does move foward.

Another thought: is your windlass (or you if you don't have one) powerful enough to pull back all your rode and the anchor suspended in deep water?

In terms of securing the anchor home, it should usually be lashed or tied rather than a pin used. In heavy seas, solid water hitting the anchor's fluke could bend the pin and so jam it. We have seen this a few times.

With small anchors and strong pins this is less of a problem.

Here's the ideal set-up. Notice chain-stop and the two hinged locks that avoid the need for lashing. Unfortunately most production boats do not feature this level of detail.
wind_horse_bow_assembly.jpg
 
Re: Avoid pins through the shank

All that effort to set up the ideal anchoring system, and they still use a bit of blue polyprop rope.

Probably easier to deploy, hence why it gets used.
So, explain the ideal system in more detail?
 
Perhaps but this is a coded boat albeit coded outside the uk, and it does not explain why the anchor & chain went out.............. Do you agree with my point that manufacturers should fit a lanyard as standard ?
 
Yup! Happened to me on a delivery trip of an S23 - anchor dropped and anchored me to seabed!!! Warp wrapped around the prop! Now I carry a metre and half length of line!! On a recent delivery of an S23 to Eastbourne, and in fact before the Level 2 course I was doing even started, the client was whizzed off to the chandlers where he spent 86p on an appropriate length of line.

Now it's a case of ALWAYS checking the anchor - if nothing else to check there is one!!!

Some manufacturers use a clip that while it holds under tension, the "bucking" of the boat through any kind of sea can cause the clip to let go. That's what happened to me. It ain't going to happen again /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Hi Dave thats strange Phil has just taught a couple on their S23 out here, abchor didnt drop but the trottle stopped working , had to tow him in, cable gone we think.


Now this is my point it can happen to anyone

Do you agree with my point that manufacturers should fit a lanyard as standard ?
I mean this was a £900k boat for gods sake.
 
Hi Clive.

Recent problem on the Phantom 40. The electric deck operated foot switches had leaked water and shorted out. This allowed the chain to run loose. Although the anchor was still secured with a short wire strop, the play was sufficient to allow it to rattle around in its bed.

Ended up with me setting off for the bow in head seas of 3 - 4 ft with a bungee cord wrapped round my waist ( big cord - big waist! ) to secure said anchor tight in the bed.

Have since replaced both foot switches with large gobs of mastic to seal them!!!

Say Hi to Phil from me and the boys.
 
Ensuring your anchor is secure is basic seamanship. Altho' I would expect any decent builder to incorporate some form of check device, its still the skippers responsibility to ensure such device is engaged or in its absence, to tie off the chain to, say, the cleat on top of the windlass. Thats what its there for. Its not rocket science, for C****** sake.
 
Clive,

I always tie it off and where the anchor roller does not seem up to it (as on current boat) I remove anchor and put it in Locker with chain. As it is not on an electric windlass it is just as fast to deploy and safer for me. One less thing to worry about! saw several accidents of this kind on windermere over the years as people with boats were not neccessarily competent! Always surprised me how much damage a swinging anchor can do in a few minutes.

Paul
 
Never even knew this was a problem. My (Bruce) anchor sits in a bracket on the foredeck, said brackets must be available 'cos MSS had a nice stainless one I couldn't afford a month back. Chain twixt anchore and hawsepipe into chain locker goes round one of the foredeck cleats. If I feel paranoid then a bit of cord through the trip line hole and back to a cleat gives extra security. I worry far more about the chain thrashing around in the chain locker when its lumpy, sounds awful and first time convinced me that something expensive and previously water tight had broken.
 
I've heard about an anchor deploying at sea and the chain wrapping itself around the sterngear and ripping one of the shafts out of the hull and sinking the boat so the consequences of not tying back the anchor in some way are potentially catastrophic
Yes, a lanyard or similar should be fitted on every boat with an anchor mounted in a bow roller or hawse pipe but, you're right, very few builders do it as standard. In fairness to Italian manufactuers though, my previous Azimut had a chain stopper fitted as standard and my current Ferretti has a wire lanyard and spring clip fitted. Maybe it's just a Brit manufacturer's disease?
 
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