Anchor size and scope for small tender?

lustyd

lustyd

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Hi all, I plan to buy a folding anchor (grapnell) for the tender. It's only a 2.3m and obviously tide doesn't affect it so is a 1.5kg OK? I'm set on the grapnell due to small stowing size and lack of pointy bits when stowed.

How much scope? I'd assume twice depth is fine for this since it's just going to be sitting on a beach in good weather with only a slight breeze affecting it?

This is not intended as "one of those threads" I genuinely want to know what you all do but please keep in mind I will never use the dinghy in adverse conditions and my life will never depend on the anchor. It will always be a nice day and the anchor is only there to stop the boat wandering when the tide comes in if I'm paying too much attention to the sausages...
 
I'm glad to see that someone else thinks that an anchor is" essential tender equipmen!!.

I rather lost confidence in folding grapnels as dinghy anchors and carry a baby Fisherman instead - it does have pointy bits of course. I have a short painter and a long one and the anchor just goes on the long painter, which is about 10 metres.
 
Minn said:
I'm glad to see that someone else thinks that an anchor is" essential tender equipmen!!.

I rather lost confidence in folding grapnels as dinghy anchors and carry a baby Fisherman instead - it does have pointy bits of course. I have a short painter and a long one and the anchor just goes on the long painter, which is about 10 metres.
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I plan to manually plant the anchor on a beach so confidence would be high that it had dug in. Not sure I'd need 10m as 2m is probably the max depth but I love the idea of two painters, that would save a lot of faff!
 
The small folding grapnel anchors have very poor holding, but as you point out, this may be enough and they are very cheap and fold down to a small package.

Personally I would not use a non folding fisherman's or grapnel anchor. It is easy to fall over in a dingy and those spikes sticking up could do a lot of damage.

The alternative, I selected, is smallest Gardian anchor (the non anodised fortress) 2kG I think, aluminium. Very light, flat and easy to store, wont rust. More expensive, but in this small size not excessively so. Much higher holding.

A high performance anchor, almost exactly what you said you did not want :), but I still think its worthy of consideration.

Edit: its a G5 1.1KG or 2.5Lb rated for a 4-5m boat, although my tender is much smaller.
 
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Minn said:
I've not seen a "non folding" Fisherman in sizes below, say, HMS VICTORY!
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Lots of anchors made for local fisherman are sold in hardware stores of Eastern Europe.

Grapnel designs seem more common in Greece and fisherman's designs in Turkey. They are typically simple welded designs (rather than folding) because they designed to be cheap and ultimately disposable. Neat storage is not much of factor on a work boat.

In the smaller models they are more commonly grapnel designs with 4 equal prongs.(because they are smaller than the equivalent fisherman design) Almost any size is available from cute designs 9 inches long + . In SS and galvanised, but don't fall on one.

The folding designs are much safer in dingy, but don't hold as well and are slightly more expensive (I suspect made in china rather than locally as they require a more complicated pivot)
 
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I have a small grapnel (I think 1.5kg sounds about right) and 2m of 6mm chain, plus a length of line. Not sure exactly how long the line is but probably a bit under 10m. However I also have a single thin mooring line which could be added to it for more length if required, plus there's the painter of course.

This lives in the "dinghy bag" together with one of Kindred Spirit's old mizzen shrouds and two padlocks (for locking up the dinghy where deemed necessary), the outboard toolkit, a torch, a hand flare (only because I inherited loads of them on Ariam, I probably won't replace it when expired), an old knife/pliers multi-tool, and a small hand-pump (whose effectiveness I somewhat doubt, to be honest). The bag is a tatty old Army-surplus thing, allegedly waterproof but probably not entirely so, selected for minimal thief-appeal.

Pete
 
I've got a small grapnel which seems to work fine with a few feet of chain and a long painter. I only bother to take it with me when I think I'll be using it. Most of the time I just find a rock, tie a barrel hitch and bung it down on the ground.

The advantage of the grapnel is that I can set it with one of the flukes retracted. That way I can dig it in on a beach without having a bit of metal sticking up to catch youngsters feet as they go by.
 
lustyd said:
Hi all, I plan to buy a folding anchor (grapnell) for the tender. It's only a 2.3m and obviously tide doesn't affect it so is a 1.5kg OK? I'm set on the grapnell due to small stowing size and lack of pointy bits when stowed.

How much scope? I'd assume twice depth is fine for this since it's just going to be sitting on a beach in good weather with only a slight breeze affecting it?

This is not intended as "one of those threads" I genuinely want to know what you all do but please keep in mind I will never use the dinghy in adverse conditions and my life will never depend on the anchor. It will always be a nice day and the anchor is only there to stop the boat wandering when the tide comes in if I'm paying too much attention to the sausages...
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I have a 1.4kg folding grapnel for my Mirror. I reckon i have about 90ft of rope on it.... dunno why!
 
Carrying it above the high water line is probably the most effective anchor. Or a big tent peg.

I bought a grapnel anchor and 100' of line for my Mirror to meet some conditions for using a launch site on the Holderness coast, it seemed OTT to me. Can't remember the weight of the grapnel but 3.5Kg sounds about right. 100' of line just about fits in a Winchester sized BDH canister but the anchor was a couple of inches too long.
 
I just bought to Grapnels size 1.5 kg and o.7 kg. the latter is my kedge anchr for cafes etc going bow in. I would say tge mushroom anchor is the best or oerhaps just a long length of chain looped. Too many lines in the water for little grapnel to hook on to.

As for scope get 10 metres like the chap mentioned then you can anchor it out so the sand and rock of the beach dont damage the hull.
 
I have a folding grapnel which as far as i can tell is a useless as as useless thing, but since it is not used except occasionally when in the boat and fishing the shallows, or on the beach, it seems to suffice.
What i have found brilliant is the rope winder that i copied in plywood and similar to this. View attachment 33323
(It took all of 10 mins with a jigsaw.)
I have a longish length of 6 mm rope that without the winder was not fun to handle, but with the winder is no problem.
The rope on its winder and anchor live in a drawstring nylon bag when not in use.
Cheers
 
Jamesuk said:
I just bought two Grapnels size 1.5 kg and o.7 kg...
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0.7kg? Really? It must be like an attachment on a Swiss Army knife!

Those fairly cheap spade/Danforth copies at the chandleries, available at a fraction of branded versions...are they just made from inferior metals, or is their geometry flawed, relative to the high-holding originals? They look like bargains, if you have room in the dinghy for a substantial lump.
 
Thanks for the info everyone. I think I'll go for 10m of line with the little grapnel and see how I get on :) In a 2.3m there's barely room for the skipper and BBQ so I'm trying to keep it as small as possible.
 
I have a grapnel, but only really use it for jamming into rocks ashore to run a line from. My rowing boat has a very small bruce, with 2m of light chain and about 15m of 8mm line. All kept in a bucket. That works fine. I personally would not rely upon a grapnel.
 
For my dinghy, I've been using a 4.5lb Danforth, which I bought when I was a schoolboy, rather a long time ago.;)
 
I currently have a grapnel and 50 ft of 3/8th line plus a backup of 150 ft of 1/4 line. I think I made a mistake with the grapnel as I had a small danforth before which seemed to hold better. The grapnel is twice as heavy and holds less well. It usually does get a grip eventually.

I regard the dinghy anchor as safety equipement as the ability to anchor if the OB fails is essential.

RIBs do not row well.
 
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