Anchor wally

[sailaboutvic]

There are three things that will stop your anchoring well .
Ground your trying to anchor on .
The gear your using in .
And the technique .

I reckon it's the technique that lets most people down the most , followed by their gear or lack of gear .
Going in astern too fast is one of the biggest problem , when it comes to technique followed by being afraid to dig it in in case it comes out again .

When it comes to gear , not letting out enough chain and using the wrong anchors .

Ground comes in last ,why ?
Well here in the Med we see people going around and around looking for a patch of sand and even then they still have problem because of the above .
It seen that some think that only on sand one can be sure it's anchor will not pull out .

This could be the reason why we often see boats anchor very close to gather , all after the same bit of sand patch .

What the same people would do if there had to anchor as we and so many do back home where you can't see your hand in front of your face is any body guess ,

What the Op has describe is nothing unusually , BUT I rather someone try and anchor five , six or even seven time and getting it right then someone just dropping his anchor and hoping for the best ' especially if he happen to anchor right in front of me .
Funnies thing I have even seen was a guy diving in with a child sand spade , the mind bobbles what he was going to do .

 

[savageseadog]

Must be using the "wrong" sort of anchor

 

[thinwater]

Amen.

Let's try to get more positive thinking on the various threads!

Great points!

Tony

Yes, except he has most likely stubbornly avoided any attempt to learn by reading or by listening or by asking.

Additionally, he is very likely making the same mistakes repeatedly, suggesting he believes against all evidence that the results will change.

Finally, he will never know if he is anchored well, but will probably stay anyway, placing others at risk.

Yeah, sometimes you've got to admit to yourself that you are in over your head and quit.

 

[Babylon]

As a relative latecomer to sailing (40 at the time), I assumed that most other people knew what they were doing. Experience has however taught me otherwise, but its important not to carp when people cock things up.

Safely moored in St Helier's visitor's marina a week ago, my young son and observed a middle-aged Frenchman in a Beneteau 36 try to turn around in a dead end (our dead end!) by engaging full forward, but not turning his wheel and thus ramming the bow of very expensive large motorboat opposite. It was totally inexplicable.

I immediately told my kid not to laugh or point or say anything out loud. I said there could be loads of reasons for his foul-up. He could have been sick and disoriented after a bad crossing (as my son had himself experienced in a rolly sea for four hours the day before), or he could have had some steering gear failure.

The reality was probably that he was quite new to sailing and wasn't born with sufficient time-space mechanical co-ordination. Maybe right now he and his woman are doing a week of pontoon-bashing tuition in a French school?

We all started somewhere.

 

[vyv_cox]

One of those popular big RIBs we see in Greece has just avoided any form of anchor cockup. Berthed stern-to near to us with no anchor whatsoever. Boat blowing all over but crew have all gone ashore.

 

[RichardS]

One of those popular big RIBs we see in Greece has just avoided any form of anchor cockup. Berthed stern-to near to us with no anchor whatsoever. Boat blowing all over but crew have all gone ashore.

"Berthed" is probably not the right term Vyv.

"Abandoned" is probably closer. :ambivalence:

Richard

 

[adwuk]

The first time we visited Canna in our Sigma 33, we tried for over an hour to get our anchor to bite, it was dusk and raining and we could not see where the patches of weed were on the bottom, it was a gusty day, we were already very tired and hungry and the more we tried the more it slid. My son and I were getting very angry with each other. The standard OOD anchor was a 15 lb. CQR and we had been using it frequently usually for anchoring after regattas etc. and it had held okay in Tob. the night before, the kedge on a Sigma 33 was a small (7lb?) Bruce so in desperation we tried it, it bit first time. Since then I have always tried to be sympathetic to anyone who has difficulty getting their anchor dug in.

We saw a Sigma 33 in Canna a few weeks ago suffering exactly the same problem. Felt really sorry for them. Each time they dragged, the CQR came back up covered in weed. Eventually they rafted with another boat on one of the moorings. Our Spade dug in successfully both times we dropped it, so still convinced it was (a lot of) money well spent.

 

[Tammany]

Been away this weekend and took a few PBO mags with me to catch up. Their was a couple of letters from people arguing over how much scope to lay out. One said square root of depth x 12 and another said 4 x the depth. I've never heard of the first formula before. I've always gone 2-3 times the depth plus a bit extra but round here is just mud which helps.

 

[Tammany]

As part of my refit just dumped the fairly short rusty old chain that came with the boat in favour of 10m of 8mm chain & 30m of 12mm nylon. Plenty enough for the depths I'm likely to anchor in on the east coast. I followed this formula as that is what would have been supplied with the boat according to the specs.

 

[RupertW]

I can explain - at least for our boat. - why we always search for a patch of sand to anchor in. Or to be precise to float above once anchor is set.

Like any other part of sailing I have learnt that the imperative every time is to please the crew and please non-sailing friends. Sailing performance and safety at anchor a long way down the priority list.

So the game is really for me to work out how to do both safety and happiness so that sailing remains sociable and people keep coming back as I like that.

And for my wife happiness is shallow turquoise water - disappointment is other boats in turquoise water when we are over dark weed - she won't go swimming and swimming is her biggest pleasure when anchored.

This is all maddening until I remember how much fun our life is because she's always spent our holidays with me sailing.

 

[KellysEye]

You should try anchoring in Great Harbour, Jost van Dyke, BVIs finding somewhere that holds is a nightmare. English Harbour, Antigua is difficult because there are large areas of sand over coral, the same is true in Union island, Grenadines.

 

[vyv_cox]

Been away this weekend and took a few PBO mags with me to catch up. Their was a couple of letters from people arguing over how much scope to lay out. One said square root of depth x 12 and another said 4 x the depth. I've never heard of the first formula before. I've always gone 2-3 times the depth plus a bit extra but round here is just mud which helps.

I think you will find it was YM, not PBO, unless the same person wrote to both mags. His suggestion was square root x 12 but of course this is nonsense, at 144 the anchor would not touch the bottom. My reply quoted 4:1, which is a reasonable compromise but I have anchored with as little as 2.5:1 and as much as 10:1.

 

[VO5]

I think you will find it was YM, not PBO, unless the same person wrote to both mags. His suggestion was square root x 12 but of course this is nonsense, at 144 the anchor would not touch the bottom. My reply quoted 4:1, which is a reasonable compromise but I have anchored with as little as 2.5:1 and as much as 10:1.

I agree with you Viv. But the significance of the obvious has been overlooked. Surely the object is to not have that scope of cable hanging there perpendicularly in any event ? The weight of the chain alone must be huge ?

 

[GHA]

I think you will find it was YM, not PBO, unless the same person wrote to both mags. His suggestion was square root x 12 but of course this is nonsense, at 144 the anchor would not touch the bottom. My reply quoted 4:1, which is a reasonable compromise but I have anchored with as little as 2.5:1 and as much as 10:1.

This is 2 x Depth + 23m (red line) , which matches very well 10mm chain with a force of 230Kg(just lifting the last link off the seabed) . (the blue line, y axis is scope, x axis depth of water in metres)
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/lzjff8atpq
Been a while so I can't remember how the equation works, feel free to show its wrong

 

[Tammany]

I think you will find it was YM, not PBO, unless the same person wrote to both mags. His suggestion was square root x 12 but of course this is nonsense, at 144 the anchor would not touch the bottom. My reply quoted 4:1, which is a reasonable compromise but I have anchored with as little as 2.5:1 and as much as 10:1.

I did have one YM so yes it probably was in that. I've never heard of the square root formula, does anyone know where does it come from? Perhaps only valid to a certain depth?

 

[GHA]

I did have one YM so yes it probably was in that. I've never heard of the square root formula, does anyone know where does it come from? Perhaps only valid to a certain depth?

Similar to the scope required to just lift 10mm chain with 230kg and 2X+23m(easier to remember)
Lowest line on here..

2X+23m gets my vote, little to be gained with more than 8:1 in shallow water anyway (apart from feeling like you've done something ) so the very start of the graph can pretty much be ignored.

 

[Mariner69]

........ I've never heard of the square root formula, does anyone know where does it come from?.......QUOTE]

British Admiralty: 1.5 x square root depth in metres for steel cable 1.0 for bronze cable in mine warfare vessels. Merchant Navy: Nicholls Concise says 5 times the depth for cable to depth.

 

[vyv_cox]

British Admiralty: 1.5 x square root depth in metres for steel cable 1.0 for bronze cable in mine warfare vessels.

Surely cannot be correct? In 9 metres that gives me 4.5 metres of chain.

 

[sarabande]

I quote from my 1964 Admiralty Manual Of Seamanship, Vol 1.


"A rough rule for forged steel cable is : Amount of cable to to veer in shackles is twice the square root of the depth of water in fathoms. "


and

"The cable must be long enough to ensure that a part of it near the anchor always remains IN the sea bed."


I recall that doughty and proficient sailor, Haydn, saying that it's chain that holds a boat, not the anchor.

 

[skipmac]

I recall that doughty and proficient sailor, Haydn, saying that it's chain that holds a boat, not the anchor.

If so, then we should all get rid of the anchors and just toss out a big length of bare chain.

Yes of course that's not exactly what he meant but still it does sound a bit silly.