Anchoring

[ParaHandy]

Re: Ye cannae chunter but ye can rant....

When from my mither's womb I fell,
Thou might hae plung'd me deep in Hell,
To gnash my gooms, and weep and wail,
In burning lakes,
Whare damned devils roar and yell,
Chain'd to their stakes.

Acktually, with enough chain..........but then, I'm no expert

 

[Chris_Robb]

Re: Setting a CQR

Yes - thats what I was taught! don't throw it all out to make a pile! However I will give your method a go, as we will be doing plenty of anchoring this summer hols in south Brittany.

 

[jimi]

Re: Sorry Peter, I couldn\'t resist it

Is that the Junior Mountaineering Club of Scotland?

Jim

 

[Guest]

Re: Anchoring Practices:

Well I claim not to be an expert and I am not! You may and will judge my approach to anchoring and in that light you will need at least a brief background.
I sail with a crew of my wife and myself and after going around the big "ball" once,
the Pacific Ocean and over the top to Alaska, once, then down the West Coast of the USA to Panama and back with a 3 year stop in the Sea of Cortez and then back to San Diego if that is not enough anchoring to satisfy you as to my approach, then we will add 15 years of 200 days per year and more at Sea or anchoring as a Commercial Fisherman with a very well equipped Large Salmon and Albacore Troller who has successfully fished the entire west coast from San Diego to the upper end of Vancouver Island and out to the Midway Island Albacore
grounds. During this time we have anchored in every bottom you can name and under all sorts of weather conditions including several whole gales. I think it is safe to say we have seen most of it, but surely not all.
Now, we have a 32' sloop and this is the gear we use and how we use it and our
approach to using it. First, we have a top of the line Ideal Electric Windlass. Our main anchor or bower as you Brit's call it is a 35# s/s Northill, our second anchor is a 35# Deep-Set Danforth, the third anchor is a Fortress 27# our final anchor is a 44' Bulwagg which replaces our 35# CQR. If you pay attention to the working fisherman on both coasts of the US you will see more Homemade variations of the Northill then all the rest of the anchor types put together. That should tell anyone
something very important! We carry 4 individual rodes all exactly alike. 1st 6' of
3/4" double-link xUSN chain which weighs about 45#, attached to this two Navy style shackles with pins which are held in place with the special reusable cotter pin that comes with them. One shackle on each end, one to the anchor the other to a 3/8" swivel which attaches to 110' feet of 5/16" hi-test chain. To mark the chain I weave a small piece of yellow line through it at 10' and then I do the same every
4 fathoms, using a different color at each location, to easily remember, the colors
are, Red,White, and Blue with Green at the very end. I attach this chain to two hundred feet of 5/8" double braided nylon with a locked bowline.
My approach is based on the fact that if your anchor is well set origanally then it is the sudden shock loads in severe weather that causes the havic. To this end we drop our hook play out the warp as we back down or are blown or drift down. Our
ratio's are flexiable, sometmes 5:1,anoither 7:1 and sometimes 10:1 or more. It depends on the conditions and that is your judgement call!! We have a Sabb diesel with a variable pitch prop. I max torque the prop, back down at 25% and make sure the gear is well set. To make sure I've straightened out the 6' of heavy chain I increase my rpms to 50% and hold it for a minute or two; satisfied, I back off on the throttle and in nuetral I pull the boat forward with the anchor winch to a point on the anchor warp where I judge that if I tie one of my big RED balls to the warp with a rolling hitch that before any strain will come on the bow roller, the Red Ball will have to be totally submerged. The ball is 36" and I carry
two. The ball is then carrying the load of the anchor gear from the ball to the anchor and from the ball to the boat. only once in 40 years have I needed two balls, on the same rode, the other ball is for the second rode. The ball absorbs the shock loads of breaking wave and wind and the angle from the bottom is not changed enough to cause any problems. If you have to cast off in a hurry, and twice we've do that commercial fishing, you can always come back and pickup you expensive gear. When you are at anchor in a heavy tidal stream or current as you swing 180 degrees, the weight of the 6' of chain has to move first, this allows a slow turning of an anchor, normally that is all that is necessary to keep it plugged into the bottom. I use the same approach in shallow or deep water. Two very important pieces of advise: Never anchor too close to another boat!! The boat you have to save could be your own. Sheep have no place on the ocean!!, next if you are at anchor either have a BLACK SHAPE up or an ANCHOR LIGHT.
and last, Hang your light be it electric or what ever else you use, about 6' off the deck not on the mast head.
Good Anchoring!!

Keep on Learning!!

 

[ccscott49]

Re: Anchoring Practices:

What does a Northill anchor look like?

 

[Guest]

Re: Anchoring Practices:

If you send me an e-mail address when I go back to the boat on this Tues.,coming I will take a picture of mine with my digital camera and send it to you.
Gene

Keep on Learning!!

 

[NigeCh]

Aye

But I'm no a Little nor a Smart nor an Orr. I was nae involved wi' Hamish and the CIC poker. Yes I may haver but my deeds are done and it was nce to do Zero two days later.

 

[jimi]

Re: Aye

Och I thocht that wis Smith & Marshall!

Jim

 

[ccscott49]

Re: Anchoring Practices:

sent it to you on a pm, thankyou!

 

[charles_reed]

Re: Anchoring Practices:

Thanks for that Manatee_Gene.
I don't think I've ever seen a Northill over here in Europe, even on Oregon boats.

Don Street in his highly subjective books rates the Northill at the bottom of the anchor stakes. Which just goes to show you don't know what you don't know.

I've occasionally used a big (36") fender onto the anchor chain, usually in a big blow, mainly because it reduces the snatch.

I'm intrigued by the length of chain from anchor to swivel - most Europeans have their swivel direct to the anchor - what's the thinking behind that.

I note you use Hi-test chain - commonplace in the States but unusual in the UK.
I changed my 5/8" chain for 7mm hi-tensile and find I can carry 160' of chain instead of 100' of the old standard chain for the same weight. I've also got 200' of Octoplait rode on the bower.

Do you use chain on the deepset Danforth (and how the hell do you get it back up again after a blow?)

I have my marking every 4m (how do you know how much you've veered in the dark?).

I certainly 2nd your comment about having your anchor ready-buoyed, having had to come back to collect gear twice.

What do you think of tandem anchors - one recommendation I heard was to have a Fortress, backed up by another heavier plough on the same line.

Last, and not least, many in the US swear by all nylon rode, others will only use chain - where do you stand.

 

[charles_reed]

Yes many work on the out-dated rule of thumb, based upon thorough misunderstanding of the original research and promulgated for long by the RYA, of x3 the depth.

Unfortunately the alternative offered (x20 sq.root.depth) appears apocryphal requiring (check my math) 49m in 6m depth (pretty normal for yotties).

Too long a scope results in becoming an antisocial "hunter" and how would you cope up the Guadiana with sand pools 7-8m deep surrounded on 10-12m by drying rocks?
To short (French anchoring) and you hope someone catches your boat before it goes ashore.

I work at around 5:1 in good holding and settled weather - rising to nearly 10:1 when anchoring in an expected >F5.

 

[charles_reed]

Re: Setting a CQR

Agree with your theory, but not with your practice mirelle.

Certainly the CQR needs attention to get it to dig in right - however one other prequisite (brought to my notice by having a crew in St Marys).

1. Make sure it hits the bottom right way up - for this reason many (especially in the Med) paint the topside of their anchor white.
2. Lay the chain out from the anchor (even a CQR won't dig in if a bight of chain is under it)
3. Give a sharp jerk to get it started and then good reverse rpm to make sure it buries.

Most of my anchoring is single-handed so I don't have to cope with over-anxious, supercilious or just plain incompetent crew.

Under light wind conditions.
Motor round the chosen spot to get an idea of the underwater configuration using the echo-sounder. (I've twice found foul ground by this). Check its fairly level or (better) gently shelving deeper.
Stop engine, lock tiller and hang the anchor to touch the water so you can check when forward progress stops. When way stops.
Lower the anchor until it touches bottom, align it then pay out chain as fast as she drifts downwind until you've let out depth-of-water + 3 boat lengths, make fast (tricky if you want to preserve phalages). As the boat checks and stops let out a little more scope and then a burst of full astern to check it's dug in.

 

[charles_reed]

Re: Disagree with your assessment of the Bruce ...

My own one experience (once) with the Bruce (20kg) was at Studland (you can't ask for better ground) was on a friend's, fairly boxy, 35' powerboat in F3 offshore.
It was not entirely satisfactory and he did, later, substitute another anchor for the Bruce.

I draw my information from a US naval architect of my acquaintance who swears by the Bruce, specifies it for all his boats, but always about 3 sizes heavier than recommended by the manufacturers.

If you're interested in his opinions, send me an e-mail and I'll pass you his address.

 

[charles_reed]

The other places where the once-good-holding mud gets cut to soup are
Alvor, just next to Lagos,
Morbihan when you can find a place not littered with morings,
especially in season.


Mind you, my memory of Lulworth was fighting to pull the damn thing out of blue clay.

 

[ccscott49]

Re: Setting a CQR

I use an identical method, however I just dragged a 65lb cqr, with 100' of 5/8" chain, all over St.Antonio bay, slowly quickly, jerking etc. and still couoldn't get the b......d to dig in! Sent my fish/crew down with a snorkle to turn it into the sand/weed, it dug in straight away! but it was just dragging on its side all over the place. The halls pattern eventually buried itself! I must get a more efficient anchor for this stuff, it's getting embarrassing! The cqr by the way is in fine sharp condition, I even tried two different ones! same story, looks like a fishermans is the only answer for this stuff, however having seen the mayhem caused by a guy with one dragging it all over the place, because it turned and the chain pulled it out, I'm not so sure! HELP!!!!

 

[ccscott49]

At least in Alvor, you can see the thing on the bottom and tell when its buried!

 

[Guest]

Re: Anchoring Practices:

Thank you I received your e-mail address will send foto at the soonest .

Keep on Learning!!

 

[charles_reed]

Alvor

True - but you can see the anchor when the sun's high, from S of Torbay right through the Med (if it isn't obscured by an oilslick in the latter)

 

[charles_reed]

Re: Setting a CQR

There should be a weight, just behind the point underneath the CQR. Lots of lookalikes miss this.

To correct the problem, just increase that weight by adding a couple of pounds of lead on a tapped stud.

 

[NigeCh]

Re: Aye

Hamish McInnes, Graham Nichol and Tom Patey.