Retrieving the anchor is a pain

[Irish Rover]

I love my boat which I bought 3 months ago but retrieving the anchor is an absolute pain and near enough impossible when single handed. Anchoring with a catamaran is always a bit more problematic but this is a bitch. The anchor roller is located approximately 3 metres back from the bow and is impossible to see from the throttle position on the flybridge. Once the bridle is off the boat swings very fast especially with any wind or waves (a given in the Aegean in summer) and you quickly find the chain is at right angles to the roller.
I've been discussing with my more technically minded son the possibility of fitting an IR camera under the bow and connecting it to my Raymarine network. He's looking into it to see what's involved.
PS - the bow roller you see in the pic is for manually deploying and retrieving the auxiliary anchor.

 

[mikegunn]

You definitely need to be able to see what’s going on. Perhaps one of those “door bell” camera systems would work. Keep it simple. There’s no real value in linking it into your Raymarine network, as it will only get used when you’re weighing the anchor.
Nice boat, by the way. I presume you prefer it to your previous cat or you wouldn’t have changed.

Mike

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Raymarine Axiom camera connection YAPP

 

[Neeves]

Deleted

Jonathan

 

[Neeves]

Deleted

Jonathan

 

[Irish Rover]

Raymarine Axiom camera connection YAPP

Thank you. Some of the technicalities are a bit above my pay grade but I'll ask my son to have a look. I already have Raymarine forward and aft cameras. The aft camera is very useful going into a berth stern to, but the forward camera doesn't help - it sees the windlass but not the anchor roller.

 

[Irish Rover]

Some of us have no grudges and try to be helpful

I'm assuming you have a windlass control at the helm, might be a remote or fixed switch.

You have 2 engines and you should be able to hold the boat into the wind and move forward at 'windlass speed' using the 2 throttles. Helm amidships. Ignore the helm - just use the 2 throttles, gently. You need to control forward movement slowly in a straight line and retrieve - trying to use the helm complicates. Before you retrieve and disconnect the bridle, so the vessels is pointing into the wind and the rode extending forward fix the direction and motor slowly forward as you take in the rode. Once you get over the anchor the rode should be vertical and the anchor will be 'levered' out.

If you have a chain counter at the helm you can retrieve single handed, motor forward on a compass bearing or a land mark but you need to know how much chain is deployed and when the chain is vertical. Once the anchor is free - it is better then to retreive from the bow as you will know when the anchor is close to you - because you will clearly have marked the chain so that you know the anchor is 1m (or whatever is convenient) below the bow roller (use cable ties and paint). It will help if the chain is clearly marked every 10m as well as marked when the anchor will be near the bow roller.

We marked our chain every 10m and had extra marks when the chain was almost fully extended and close to the anchor.

If this lacks sufficient clarity ..... ask

Jonathan

I don't bear you any grudge. I dislike your tendency to derail threads by going off on a tangent and I particularly dislike your tendency to knock anything that doesn't accord with the way you do things. Your village schoolmaster style of posting also grates. I do acknowledge your expertise in relation to anchors and related matters.
A lot of my anchoring is done in shallow shelving bays off of a beach. In my favourite place I drop the anchor in less than 2 metres and I let out around 15 metres of rode. Here in the Aegean the meltemi blow hard, especially in the afternoon, and the shelved bottom generates surprisingly big waves. On a typical day I'd be dealing with wind around 15kts (forecast today 22kts] and waves around 1 metre. Invariably that close to shore the wind and the waves are coming from different directions and the profile of my boat means very significant windage.
My boat has 2 x 320HP engines. If I put the two of them in forward I'll very quickly be moving at 3.2 knots or 1.65 metres per second. So in 10 seconds I'll have overshot the anchor position. I haven't timed myself but I'm pretty sure it takes me longer than that to get from the flybridge to the windlass. If I overshoot the anchor there's a liklihood the chain will start to scrape the hull. As regards chain markers, I emphasise again I cannot see the chain or the anchor roller from the helm position. With the anchor position so far back under the hull it's mostly impossible to see the chain even when you're leaning over the bow rail. The only way to get a handle on the anchor position is by the angle of the chain leading onto the roller and you can only see that from the windlass position.
I have a wired remote at the windlass and a chain counter at the helm and, please forgive me, a cheap wireless remote usually in my pocket.
So with all that information do you want to give me a step by step account of how you would go about retrieving the anchor, without the chain scraping the hull, from engine start up to a stowed anchor. Bear in mind we are in shallow water close to shore.

Edit. It took me some time to finish that reply - life intervenes - and I now see you deleted your posts. Anyway, it's still there so I'd still be glad to hear from you.

 

[Irish Rover]

It seems to me, very bizarre behavior to go to the trouble of contributing 2 lengthy posts, and then delete them in their entirety, without offering any explanation.

 

[Poignard]

If you want to know where your anchor is and you can't judge it by the direction the cable lies because you can't see it, how about buoying the anchor?

 

[Irish Rover]

If you want to know where your anchor is and you can't judge it by the direction the cable lies because you can't see it, how about buoying the anchor?

Thanks. I've thought about it, and while it would certainly help to identify the location/direction of the anchor it adds another complication in terms of recovering the buoy. I accidentally dropped the bridle some time back and it was an absolute bugger to retrieve it through the very limited opening of the anchor roller - I've added a recovery cord to the bridle since then. I may play around with an anchor buoy when I'm a bit further from shore but definitely wouldn't want to be messing with it in the circumstances I described above where I'm relatively close to shore with significant onshore wind and waves.

 

[capnsensible]

Is there any advice from the manufacturer? I don't suppose there's an Owners website or anything.

Does look rather difficult....

 

[Irish Rover]

Is there any advice from the manufacturer? I don't suppose there's an Owners website or anything.

Does look rather difficult....

Thanks. I think the reality is these boats were not designed or intended for single handing. Leopard produces motor cats primarily for the charter market and I imagine there aren't too many singles looking to charter a 43' catamaran. I think an under bow camera will be the best solution.

 

[Poignard]

So you need something to keep the bow pointing generally in the direction of the anchor, ie something to create some drag and deter the boat from getting sideways on.

What about a bucket on a line over the stern to act as a drogue?

Or run the engines dead slow astern as you winch in the cable?

 

[Irish Rover]

So you need something to keep the bow pointing generally in the direction of the anchor, ie something to create some drag and deter the boat from getting sideways on.

What about a bucket on a line over the stern to act as a drogue?

Or run the engines dead slow astern as you winch in the cable?

I'm not sure I fancy having a line of any description over the stern in a situation where I'm going to be possibly shifting in and out of drive and being driven astern by the wind and/or waves. The boat weighs 14 tonnes and is being pushed back by the wind and waves. That, and with 2 x 320HP engines in reverse, I couldn't imagine the windlass coping or lasting very long.

 

[Davy_S]

How about buoying it but using an Alderny ring, that way a large buoy will simply slide up and down the chain, you wont have to try and recover the buoy that way, and you will be able to see it as you lower and recover the anchor.

 

[Poignard]

I'm not sure I fancy having a line of any description over the stern in a situation where I'm going to be possibly shifting in and out of drive and being driven astern by the wind and/or waves. The boat weighs 14 tonnes and is being pushed back by the wind and waves. That, and with 2 x 320HP engines in reverse, I couldn't imagine the windlass coping or lasting very long.

Well, of course they aren't developing anything like 320HP running dead slow.

 

[Irish Rover]

How about buoying it but using an Alderny ring, that way a large buoy will simply slide up and down the chain, you wont have to try and recover the buoy that way, and you will be able to see it as you lower and recover the anchor.

I've frequently seen these used by smaller boats to recover an anchor but I'm struggling to see how it would help me in the situation I described. Are you suggesting I motor on out over the anchor and drag it far enough to raise the anchor, then turn around and recover from the surface?

 

[Irish Rover]

Well, of course they aren't developing anything like 320HP running dead slow.

True, but even without the engines running it's a bloody big lump of boat to haul against the wind and waves on a 1,500w windlass. I've tried and didn't like the sounds I was hearing.

 

[Poignard]

Let me get this straight.

You motor towards where you think the anchor is rather than pulling yourself towards it with the windlass; and you retrieve the cable as you go.

Is that right?

 

[dunedin]

Could you

True, but even without the engines running it's a bloody big lump of boat to haul against the wind and waves on a 1,500w windlass. I've tried and didn't like the sounds I was hearing.

Is there space to replace the windlass with a much chunkier one designed for a bigger boat? That plus a wireless remote might be the ideal solution if the boat is a “keeper” and likely to be anchoring a lot short handed.