Angels; you don't hear much about them these days.

Sgeir

Sgeir

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Why is that? We don't carry one and never felt the need for one, but I dare say we could improvise if required. Anyone here use them?

Would I be correct in supposing that modern anchor design has reduced the need for them?
 
Sgeir said:
Why is that? We don't carry one and never felt the need for one, but I dare say we could improvise if required. Anyone here use them?

Would I be correct in supposing that modern anchor design has reduced the need for them?
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Complete waste of time if you use all chain rode and a lot of people do these days - everyone in Med and Caribbean. Weight of angel compared to the chain is trivial.

Richard
 
RichardS said:
Complete waste of time if you use all chain rode and a lot of people do these days - everyone in Med and Caribbean. Weight of angel compared to the chain is trivial.

Richard
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That's what I reckoned as well.

The principle is useful though, for long mooring lines when tying up to a tidal harbour wall, a weight will keep tension on the lines when the tide rises.
 
I've always called it a "Chum". Simpson Lawrence or someone like that used to sell a propriety brand under that name, but basically it's just a suitable weight slid down the anchor chain to help the catenary effect. I wouldn't like to say it does much, but when I am leaving my boat, unattended at anchor for four weeks in a Hebridean Sea loch, with two anchors in a "Bahamian Moor", I also rig a Chum. :D
 
As most people have power winches they can hang all chain and big anchors. If you had to pull it up by hand you would soon look for ways of distributing and cutting down the weight.
 
Can be useful with a rope rode, worth trying in shifty or sloppy conditions sometimes.
If other boats are lying to chain, a kellet can help fit in to a crowded anchorage.
If your rope rode is not very stretchy, a kellet may improve the motion at anchor, if you have a light boat that is jerked about by gusts or swell.
Also can reduce peak loads on the anchor in waves.

Not magic, but can help sometimes, IMHO and IME.
I used 10 or 20kg of scrap lead or dive weights.


Of course buying a better anchor, a windlass and 60m of chain is a good option if you can justify the weight and cost.
 
jerrytug said:
...useful though, for long mooring lines when tying up to a tidal harbour wall, a weight will keep tension on the lines when the tide rises.
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We lost ours, but have not missed it of late, though it proved particularly useful when going bows-to quay walls back in the eastern Med - long-keeled, so we don't do reverse - when we could deploy the chain and rope rode of the stern-anchor and afterwards slide the chum/angel down the rope; it helped stop any surge from passing boats pushing you onto the quay, but more importantly, it got the line of the rope steeply down below the keels/props of any other boats that were manouvering close astern. Ours was a 10kg barbell weight, with two holes rota-broached through it, one to take a big shackle pin and the other a 6mm recovery line.
 
An Angel or Chum is very worthwhile on smaller boats like my 22' which would be crippled by the weight of an all chain rode ( I use 30 metres of nylon with 6 metres of 5/16" chain on a 7.5kg Bruce, no snags in 37 years ) - I simply lower the kedge grapnel in folded state halfway down the bower warp.

The grapnel as a kedge might be handy one day as an emergency ' toe-hold ' on rocks in an emergency...
 
This thread reminded me I've got a 56lb weight in the stern locker just in case I ever needed an angel, but I've just looked and it's not there. How can I lose a 56lb weight? I found the shackle I kept for attaching it, but no weight. It's not the sort of thing you would miss.
 
DannyB said:
This thread reminded me I've got a 56lb weight in the stern locker just in case I ever needed an angel, but I've just looked and it's not there. How can I lose a 56lb weight? I found the shackle I kept for attaching it, but no weight. It's not the sort of thing you would miss.
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I had one of those. It had the letters "CQR" on it . . .

Good for sinking the stern anchor rope when bows to on a Greek quay per BobnLesley.

jerrytug said:
The principle is useful though, for long mooring lines when tying up to a tidal harbour wall, a weight will keep tension on the lines when the tide rises.
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I just use longish nylon lines - light tension at high water, about 7% stretched at low water.
 
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Seajet said:
An Angel or Chum is very worthwhile on smaller boats like my 22' which would be crippled by the weight of an all chain rode ( I use 30 metres of nylon with 6 metres of 5/16" chain on a 7.5kg Bruce, no snags in 37 years ) - I simply lower the kedge grapnel in folded state halfway down the bower warp.

The grapnel as a kedge might be handy one day as an emergency ' toe-hold ' on rocks in an emergency...
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I use short chain/long warp as well. My kedge is a Fortress so a lightweight, like me. I prefer to spend my money and carry the extra weight in a slightly bigger main anchor than an angel. It withstood 38 knots of Scottish wind (gnarlier than English wind, got more lumps in it) off Kerrera Island a few weeks ago. The rode was all out and so bar tight I could play tunes on it; an angel would not have done anything at all. Didn't get much sleep that night, but I was still there in the morning.

An angel might help a warp anchored boat from wandering on a quiet night, but I'm more concerned about when the unexpected gale arrives in the middle of the night. In that case I'd rather have the extra weight in the anchor. Having another 5 kg in the main anchor will certainly be a lot more effective at keeping the boat put than dangling 5 kg uselessly halfway down a bar taught line.
 
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AngusMcDoon said:
It was more than enough to be anchored in. I spent the night fretting and wishing I hadn't been a tightwad when a mooring for a tenner was only a mile away.
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Yes, I've heard people who don't trust their own ground tackle, saying, "Oh, I was alright, I was on a mooring".
Pathetic.
 
AngusMcDoon said:
Are you saying that my desire to have been on a mooring rather than at anchor on a night when it was blowing a gale was pathetic?
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Well, obviously it depends on your type of sailing, and where you sail, but as you say that you were anchored off Kerrera, I assume that you sail, at least sometimes, on the West Coast. 38 knots is by no means exceptional weather there. Visitor moorings are not that plentiful, cannot be reserved in advance, are sometimes totally inappropriate in the wind direction, (think of Castlebay or Arinagour), and so you have to be able to rely on your ground tackle, and your ability to use it, and your intelligence to choose an appropriate anchorage, in whatever the weather gods throw at you.

I do find it pathetic that people would rather pay good money to use a mooring, whose condition is entirely unknown to them, rather than using their own gear, which can be checked every time it is used.

Before all the flak comes my way, I do accept that in some places moorings are better than anchoring. Places like Tobermory, where it is deep, and Craighouse where a weedy bottom gives notoriously poor holding come to mind.

Which of the several bays of Kerrera were you anchored in, and what was the wind direction?
 
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