Shore Lines and Tender Anchors ...

[jrudge]

Hi, some help from the forum please.

Boat is a Targa 40 in Mallorca. Quite a few boats use shore lines when anchoring in the Cala's. I head down in a few weeks and would like to take a suitable line with me.

My questions ....

a. I am considering 6mm or 8mm line. All it needs to do is hold the back of the boat in some general direction. This stuff has a breaking strain off something like 600kg, and I wondered if the view was this sufficient. If it is a howling gale then I wont be there in the first place.

b. how long? OK so this is a how long is a piece of string ( or rope) question, but from other experience what is the minimum useful length. Water in Mallorca is usually deep so getting close to shore is not typically a problem.

I need to balance the weight / bulk / ability to store with being useful. I had in mind 100m, but this also depends on how much such a line would weigh (Monarch hold baggage!)


The next question is I am looking at a small grapple anchor for the tender ( 2.6 or 2.8 solid floor rib - cant remember the length). This is only to hold it whilst swimming etc. not to leave it for the afternoon. Ebay have a range - 0.7kg with 1m chain and 20 m rope being typically for about £30. Does anyone have any experience of small anchors for tenders please? Again calm water and if it moves a bit this is not really an issue. It is more about stopping it drifting away.

Thanks


Jeremy

 

[Nick_H]

We prefer to double the line back to the boat, in case the wind picks up suddenly and you need to get out quickly, so 100m means 50m from the shore, though that sounds plenty to me. Having said that, you can always ditch the entire rope in an emergency, so doubling back isn't essential.

6-8 mm is string not rope! I'd use 10mm, which is also nicer to handle (we use 14mm on the P57 for this purpose.)

Next issue is that the rocks can be razor sharp in SoF, don't know about Mallorca. We have a wire strop with rings at both ends, so the wire goes round the outcrop, then the rope goes through the rings.

For the tender you can get plastic coated mushroom anchors, which are terrible anchors but they're easy to store, and don't take chips out of the gel coat or your shins, and will hold a small tender in light winds.

 

[MedMilo]

100m sounds a bit too long to me! I would have thought that 60m would be plenty. 100% agree with Nick H that it's better to return the line to your boat in case you need to leave quickly! With 60m you obviously have a 'distance from rock' range of 30m which should be fine I would think. Only thing is that I would want two stern lines so that you don't move unduly if the wind shifts. Also agree with the idea of a sacrificial loop at the shore end - if you need to leave quickly you can leave the sacrificial loop behind - also stops your expensive 60m line fraying halfway through it's length! We have about 5m of old rope fed through a piece of hose (to stop it fraying on rocks), with a loop on each end through which we feed our long line. 10mm would be better than 6-8mm, I agree.

 

[jfm]

6-8 mm is string not rope! I'd use 10mm, which is also nicer to handle (we use 14mm on the P57 for this purpose.)

+1. In a strong wind 6mm could snap, and when it does it will have stretched several metres, and will twang and properly injure someone. You gotta use say 12mm for this job imho. 100mm won't weigh (10kg?) too much and will fit in a wheelie bag. It only gets heavy when it's wet.

If someone will be swimming with this line to the rock, consider getting floating polypropylene rope.

I use the smallest delta as a tender anchor, because they hold so well. You need a decent anchor for when you park the tender off a beach with a bow anchor, and tie a stern line to the shore (to a rock or tree, say) so as to hold the tender firmly in the surf. On the other hand if the tender is light enough to drag up the beach then you don't need anything when beaching it. For what you describe, one of those grapnel folding anchors would be fine. 7.5kg job, for example, and no chain, or 1m of 6mm chain if you're feeling very fussy

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I have 2 x 100m lengths of 14mm floating polypropylene for shore lines and like NickH, I like to double it back to the boat. After a couple of season's use, 14mm is about the minimum I'd use because, on my flybridge boat, the shorelines appear to be under a lot of strain even with a moderate breeze on the beam. If I had the choice again, I'd probably go to a larger dia but then we anchor with shorelines a lot overnight. Agree also with NickH on the necessity to have a length of chain or heavy rope to wrap around the rock or tree you use to secure the shoreline. Our 14mm line frayed quite badly over just one breezy night when we wrapped it directly around a rock. We use a short length of thick mooring rope now wrapped twice around the securing point.
We find polyprop line a PITA to handle though as it has a mind of it's own and doesn't coil easily but does seem to tangle easily. I'd like to find some kind of simple reeling system to handle it but I haven't seen anything yet
Btw you don't have to hand carry stuff to Majorca. I got fed up with that and just DHL'd everything out there. The cost isn't huge