Which *small* anchor

Kelpie

Kelpie

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With some trepidation, here's my first anchor thread :)

I'm looking for something to use in a cruising dinghy, in practise I expect to use it as a lunch hook but would also like to be able to set up a running mooring from time to time, and of course I'll be asking a lot of it if things go wrong.
I was going to do the simple thing and get a little grapnel until my mate said his wouldn't hold his Wayfarer if you farted on it. He used a 35lb CQR to set up a temp mooring. That worked! Bit big though...
I've searched and searched and everything I read is related to big anchors- 10kg or more.
A lot of people have said that smaller, lighter anchors struggle to dig in, which is probably true I suppose. I can imagine that a little (5kg or less) danforth, for example, must just skid along the top of anything but soft mud.
Is if worth getting a 'proper' anchor? There's a 3kg Manson, and a 4kg Delta- this is the sort of size range I'm relaistically looking at.

Sorry again about starting ANOTHER anchor thread, but there does seem to be a lack of info on the performance of smaller anchors.
 
Robwhelton said:
Is if worth getting a 'proper' anchor? There's a 3kg Manson, and a 4kg Delta- this is the sort of size range I'm relaistically looking at.
.
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Including for a small cruising dinghy, you need a good efficient anchor.

Not so long ago, in Cap Verde islands, a skipper has been missing. He has tried to go back to his boat at night and something ( ?) goes wrong... With a good efficient anchor, you will stay anchored until the sun will rise...

Forget about the Grapnel, Yes, it’s easy to store, but it’s not an anchor...

CQR and Bruce don’t work in small sizes – they don’t even longer exist! But small « new Gen » anchors work well.

João
 
That's pretty much what I was expecting, I think. I cannot imagine a small bruce or danforth digging in properly.
I'm restricted to a very small anchor, and was starting to assume that to have any chance of it biting, it would need to be a good design. Fortunately the smaller ones are relatively affordable!
By the way, has anybody got any experiene of Plastimo's delta copy (Kobra)?
 
I expect to use it as a lunch hook but would also like to be able to set up a running mooring from time to time . . . A running moor needs TWO anchors. What exactly did you have in mind? . . . . . I was going to get a little grapnel until my mate said his wouldn't hold QUOTE said:
It's excellent for a rocky bottom, as is the Fisherman of course, and both fold into a stowable shape, another important consideration.
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For setting up a running mooring, I'd be using one anchor and a convenient post, tree, car, boulder, etc etc on the shore. This is how I've done it in the past anyway.
I know a lot of people will say that for such a use I should be using a different, bigger, anchor than my cruising one, but that defeats the point since I want to sail somewhere and then rig the mooring.
 
I used a 10 lb fisherman's when I had a 15' heavy open clinker dayboat, as its not the sort of boat I would leave unattended it was quite satisfactory. It's "spikey" enough to settle well into river mud and as a shore or beach anchor the fluke can be pushed well into the ground (remembering to put a marker on the upturned fluke if likely to be walked into) and stowed easily. I have kept it and still use it as an anchor for the inflatable tender. If anchoring on sand then you may however want something a bit more advanced.
 
Agree with the fisherman's idea if you don't go for a 'next generation' anchor. It has a much better chance of digging in than a small light CQR/Bruce etc. Although its holding is relatively low (though much better than an un-dug in other anchor!), it really depends on what conditions you will be out in - can't imagine it will be in anything too serious with a boat of that size.
 
Robwhelton said:
I was going to do the simple thing and get a little grapnel until my mate said his wouldn't hold his Wayfarer if you farted on it. He used a 35lb CQR to set up a temp mooring. That worked! Bit big though...
I've searched and searched and everything I read is related to big anchors- 10kg or more.
Click to expand...
That's not necessarily the case, it may be the case that tests etc tend to focus on what they consider "average" sized anchors, but most of the material we're interested in applies to the full Rocna range (4 - 275 kg). Note that while the design is constant across that range, the pattern does in fact change three or four times (they are not exact scaled copies of each other). We don't go smaller than 4 kg because it would not be very effective at that scale. It's hard to get anything to work reliably at such miniature levels.

Robwhelton said:
A lot of people have said that smaller, lighter anchors struggle to dig in, which is probably true I suppose. I can imagine that a little (5kg or less) danforth, for example, must just skid along the top of anything but soft mud.
Is if worth getting a 'proper' anchor? There's a 3kg Manson, and a 4kg Delta- this is the sort of size range I'm relaistically looking at.
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It depends what you need - you'll notice that many [really] small boats, like dinghies and kayaks, do use things like Danforth variations and mushroom anchors, for use in lakes and rivers. For their use these are okay, simply because the level of performance required is so low (not being used in rough weather), and they're cheap. On the other hand, an "extreme" adventure tourist outfit here in New Zealand needs to use relatively expensive Rocna 6's to hold their boats in the surf-line off beaches, cos they do crazy stuff like that - Deltas and Mansons weren't doing the trick.

You need to worry about other elements of the system as well. Shock absorption becomes critically important. Your line wants to be well stretchy :)
 
craigsmith said:
You need to worry about other elements of the system as well. Shock absorption becomes critically important. Your line wants to be well stretchy :)
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I should have made clear above that my small fisherman's does have about 5 or 6 m of (smallish) chain which I wind around the folded stock and shaft when stowing it.
 
I've got a brand new 35lb plough you can have for £25.
Otherwise when I was a kid in my dinghy, we used to wrap a few house bricks in a large old bath towel, sling it in a bit of old netting from my gramps excess fruit cage stuff, rope it all up and sling that over the side.
Advantage was it's as cheap as chips if not less and it never got so stuck so that we kids could always get it lifted.
 
I do like the idea of a fisherman's- plenty of rocky and weedy bottoms around here. Thanks, Mike, for sharing your experience of a 10lb example. I was looking at a very small fisherman's (anchor, not bottom!) yesterday in a local shop- probably 2kg or less- and simply could not imagine it generating much of a hold. But if your larger one has worked for you, that's good to know.

To reiterate, I have three purposes in mind for this anchor:
- mostly, it would just be a lunch hook, in fact I might use it as a beach anchor more often than anything else, so that suggests I could get away with something pretty light and/or cheap
- secondly, whilst cruising I will want to set up an overnight running mooring from time to time, and that means an anchor that will hold reliably and give me a good night's sleep, and not break out or trip itself through tide or wind changes. However in this use I can take a lot of care over exactly where I drop the anchor so it needn't set 'first time every time'.
- thirdly, my local sailing area (outer Hebrides) is a fairly serious place and the weather can change very fast. So it's quite possible I will find myself needing an anchor in a variety of emergency situations, and for those scenarios I certainly don't want it to fail, at all, ever.

My accumulated knowledge about different designs is thus:
- a bruce probably doesn't work well at small sizes
- fisherman's appears to work but I'd be worried about using one for an overnight running mooring due to exposed fluke
- danforth could be a good compliment to a fisherman's, but might it break out and fail to reset with a change in tide?
- I've heard bad things about CQR clones... and a proper CQR is too expensive... but a Delta is certainly affordable. Maybe not the best design available, but I can afford a 6kg Delta for the same price as a 3kg Manson... which one holds better?
- I have heard nothing against Rocna except the price. For the same price as a 4kg Rocna, you get a 7kg Manson or a 16kg delta, although these would be too heavy to carry comfortably in the dinghy, and in any case I really don't have the money.

All in all, the 4 or 6kg Delta is looking pretty good right now, or alternatively a duo of a 4kg fisherman's and a 4kg danforth. This has a lot of advantages but is also more weight in the boat. If I really, really push out the budget I could consider the little 3kg Manson.

One last point- I have a 50m nylon warp which I'd plan to use with whatever anchor I eventually buy, and I'll put a bit of chain on there too, but there is a limit of what I can carry.
 
If it's a dingy, pull it up the beach.

If you want a lunch stop anything will do, especially if you pull it up the beach.

If you want to stay overnight, pull it up the beach above high tide line and put the tent up, above high tide line too.

If you want an emergency stop, take oars/outboard, which you should have anyway, and row/motor ashore to pull it up the beach.
 
aquaplane said:
If it's a dingy, pull it up the beach.

If you want a lunch stop anything will do, especially if you pull it up the beach.
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It's a Wayfarer, 200kg, a bit big to pull up a beach. I wouldn't be asking about this if there wasn't a need! The beaches round here are good, but they're far apart with ironbound stretches inbetween, and the surf can get big.

One other use for the anchor comes ot mind, actually: hoisting the sails once clear of the shore. In my experience this can be a fraught operation and in stronger winds it is hard to keep the boat head to wind under oars alone. I always pick up a buoy if available to do this, unless casting off from a weather shore. An anchor offers another option for getting underway, IMHO.

If you want to stay overnight, pull it up the beach above high tide line and put the tent up, above high tide line too.
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Last time we went dinghy camping we tried this: four guys, a set of rollers, and a block and tackle, and we barely got the boat clear. Not worth it.

If you want an emergency stop, take oars/outboard, which you should have anyway, and row/motor ashore to pull it up the beach.
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The emergency stop I have in mind is a disabled boat drifting onto an ironbound lee shore. Perhaps I've capsized and am too tired/cold to recover the boat. I'd like to at least slow the rate of drift whilst I call for help. It's not a nice thing to think about but I want to be prepared.
 
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