New anchor....... 5 years old

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Garold

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I just purchased an anchor from ebay.

It was described as 5 years old but unused for anchoring.

I thought it a bit strange but bid anyway because i'd been looking at this anchor for a while. And I bought it.

When I collected it this weekend from a really nice guy, he explained that he'd had it on his bow roller for 5 years and never anchored. Then, upon changing boats, and after keeping the anchor, found that it didn't fit his bow roller on the new boat so decided to sell it.

Given that the stainless steel spade anchor originally cost about £1700, and now costs about £2200+vat it got me wondering how much people do really, truthfully, regularly, use their anchor. And the newer designs can be quite a costly bit of kit. Looking around, I have noticed that lots of anchors on boats look pretty untarnished.

Perhaps the last owner of my new anchor isn't so unusual.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

Garold.
 
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The moral perhaps is: don't buy a used anchor from a liveaboard. Well, unless it's really cheap. Mine gets used maybe 200 times per year.

On the other hand, perhaps anyone daft enough to buy a stainless one wouldn't want to put it down in all that muck.
 
My thought is that it's bizarre and a little sad that someone would never anchor. But I guess I'm not really surprised.

Pete
 
We met a couple in Douarnenez who had been sailing for ten years from a marina in Southampton. He told us quite unconcernedly that they had tried anchoring once and it didn't work, so they had never tried it again.
 
Garold said:
I just purchased an anchor from ebay.
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That's beautiful - a work of art.
Even at the price you paid though I'd be too scared to use it in case it fouled and I couldn't get it back up.
I prefer a lump of cheap, expendable Chinese steel myself!

Best padlock it to your stemhead fitting or store it down below..
 
We spend between 100 and 140 days and nights aboard. We don't have a handbrake, so the anchor is used every time we stop, and we no longer sail at night. So the answer is, yes ours is used a lot.
 
prv said:
My thought is that it's bizarre and a little sad that someone would never anchor. But I guess I'm not really surprised.

Pete
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In a lot of cases, looking at what passes for an anchor on the bows of some boats, it is just as well that they do not use them.
 
Talbot said:
In a lot of cases, looking at what passes for an anchor on the bows of some boats, it is just as well that they do not use them.
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So true. Jissel's 24ft & 3 tons with all my junk on board, yet I get a lot of amusement wandering down a marina pontoon looking at all the 30-40 footers with smaller anchors than my10kg delta. OK, it's probably 50% bigger than I really need, but I like to sleep well at anchor.
 
Stemar said:
............OK, it's probably 50% bigger than I really need, but I like to sleep well at anchor.
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+1

I am a bit taken aback by the price of anchors these days, but given that we anchor 40/50% of nights on board, it gets plenty of use.

However, I certainly sleep better knowing that I have the best ground tackle I could muster, and set it properly.

I thought that I'd try stainless steel this time because I find that after the first couple of seasons of use, galvanising gets damaged and tiny areas of rust are often evident on most anchors (if used regularly). I just hope that the stainless on the anchor is better than some of the French stainless on the rest of our boat.

Cheers

Garold
 
Talbot said:
In a lot of cases, looking at what passes for an anchor on the bows of some boats, it is just as well that they do not use them.
Click to expand...

That's very true. Seems to apply to motorboats in particular - you get some tiny (but very shiny) toothpicks on the bows of massive boats. But then again, they may be suitable for their intended purpose, as a lot of those guys have no intention whatsoever of anchoring overnight. All-electric galleys run only off shore power, for instance - they have to go into a marina. The anchor is only used for a spot of swimming around the boat at lunchtime.

You do get some undersized examples on sailing boats as well, of course.

Pete
 
I have an anchor in the bilge that I bought at boatjumble that had saved its previous mothership on a rocky Azores drag. Not bent, mangled, just 'worked' cos thats what it were designed for...It is a bit too heavy, stows neatly, came with lorra chain and multiplait and the owner was a bit like moi, wanted it to go to a good home with a fair likelihood of its being appreciated. The price was a token.
I like anchoring.
When I fitted oversized electric anchor winch ( and someone on here got a unused bargain outa that hoho) people said why bother, why spend?
I like anchoring. I like coming into and leaving under sail, from the cockpit. It is just civilised and, marinas aside, the UK is beautiful and spacious..

And its easier than all those bloody fend-offs and ropes and which-berth-is-it and how much????? ( usually more than one would spend on alcohol for a weekend eh?.Now, that is Simply NOT ON!)
 
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