Anchoring in DEEP water

Petrolia

Petrolia

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Is it possible for a 33ft boat to anchor in say 200ft of water? I'm talking fishing of course.

I don't suppose you could use all chain as it would be very heavy. Maybe knacker the electric winch pulling it up ?

Can electric winches automatically handle chain & rope ?

We only every anchored previous boat (Hardy 24) in up to 100ft and pulled up chain & rope by hand ! Nearly killed me.

Want to go deeper easier. Tips appreciated.

Petrolia
 
From an american forum I use:

"We have anchored in moderatly deep water with our 33ft MS. 200ft of 3/8 chain and 300ft of 1/2 nylon works well in up to 200ft of water.

But its a real workout with a S/L 555 and the handle.

For real deep water anchoring/ cruising a hydraulic windlass is the best , as when overloaded they just stop , rather than have the SMOKE come out. "

Personally I just let the boat drift when fishing.
 
I'd be tempted to go for just a few feet of chain and the rest rope. I guess its far less critical if the anchor breaks out if you're in deep water and not asleep. An electric windlass will handle rope so long as you get one with a drum on top. Just wrap the rope once or twice round the drum and lay the loose end as you operate the windlass.
 
Yep it's not a problem, but the weight of the chain as you already know can make it hard to retrieve, we used to just use rope on racing yachts and have anchored mid channel on occasions. In fact we had to tie several bits of rope together to reach the bottom.
 
I have anchored in 60m (mid channel) and it took a very long time to get the hook up. If you are anchoring for stability while fishing, have you cobnsidered use of a large drogue or even a small parachute These will be easier to recover, but will have practically the same effect.
 
We do often drift, either over wrecks or open ground.

I just wanted to try anchoring on some of the deeper water wrecks.

Maybe I would lose less gear than drifting over them.

I probalby spend more on lost tackle than diesel !
 
my rode is 200m 14mm anchoplait to 17m 8mm chain and works fine most places (other than the hurd deep!)

whilst the gypsy will handle the rope if I am in more than 100ft I tend to use the drum and stow the line later - bit of a pain but overall works fine depth wise.

as the depth increases you can get away with a lower scope for the same holding anyway.
 
Interesting.
How would I do that ? Pay someone else I think.
Is it allowed ?
Would probably be someone else on it when I got there /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif
Never seen a permanent mooring on any of the wrecks I've fished.
 
Already been thinking of that. I think it's only a blink away on the new IPS/Simrad hookup. Unfortunately only have twin outdrives.

I have autopilot and had been wondering if I could make it keep station by just heading into prevailing drift. But the boat would probably move updrift even on one engine.

I have arranged to have a plotter/fish finder repeater in the cockpit. Maybe throttle & slide controls in cockpit as well would make it possible to almost hold station without too much adjustment.

Probably talking rubbish but I'll be trying it.
 
it gets hot but the heat is more load related than length run - so as long as you aren't putting any load on it to drag the boat up tide to the anchor it's fine.

the actual weight of the anchor adn chain is well within my windlass's liimits
 
If its just for wreck fishing, you can do it using 30Ft chain and you need to borrow or nick the 8mm polyprop rope drums that are used to pull telephone cables and the like through pipes. They hold 200 yds aprox. Use alderney ring or winch to recover it. Its a long way to pull it back up if you overshoot the wreck though!
 
[ QUOTE ]
I have arranged to have a plotter/fish finder repeater in the cockpit. Maybe throttle & slide controls in cockpit as well would make it possible to almost hold station without too much adjustment.

[/ QUOTE ]

Three years ago I was on Sydney Harbour and we dreamt up the perfect boat handling device. Perfect for holding station, docking, picking up moorings, in fact anything.

Based on GPS, bow thruster and stern thruster, it is not unlike what survey ships use for keeping on station.

We decided that is was the perfect tool for docking. The control would be a remote handset with a central button and either four directional buttons, or the deluxe eight directional button model.

Basically you coast to within spitting distance of berth and hit the middle button, which instantly locks the position, with the thrusters and engines working to keep the position.

You then use the directional buttons to 'nudge' the boat into the berth. The beauty being that you can move in nice and slow and you will have no 'way', because the moment you release the directional button, the auto positioning cuts in again.

When we described this to a real boaty person the next day, he said he would be the first to buy one because he hated leaving harbour with his fenders down. He could just nudge out of his berth and then 'fix' the boat in the centre between the pontoons, pull up the fenders, gather the warps and make sure everything was shipshape before he departed.

This was 'invented' with the assistance of an esky full of Victoria Bitter and the flaws became apparent once we had sobered up.

Namely that the main engine cannot change gear either automatically, or quick enough to assist with the forwards and backwards thrust and the expence of fitting two more thrusters was prohibitive.

In theory the GPS side of it is relatively simple, but the mechanics of the thrust vectoring makes it very complicated. We did consider water pumps for the forward and backwards thrust, but realised that we would need pumps as big as fire boat pumps to overcome a strong tide.

Next week, we are going to discover alchemy.

Anyone for green?
 
Thanks for suggestions everybody, chain v rope lengths, etc.

I have tried the Aldernay ring before but for some reason gravitated back to pulling it by hand.

I think I'll see how the new boats winch copes but if necessary re-visit the aldernay system.

Petrolia
 
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