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| Anchored in the bay |
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| Anchor Tattoo's |
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| Picture courtesy of Westmarine.com - Doesn't fully capture the part where you have to smoke. |
Now this is not technical... And all my sailor mates, be gentle with your criticism... But I feel learning to set an anchor properly was imperative for me.
Talking anchors in the sailing/boating community is like talking religion or politics. Everyone has their own opinion and discussions can get very heated. What type of anchor? how much rode to let out? chain or rope? What anchor for what bottom, etc. Endless contradictive advice came on how to anchor the best way.
Let's be honest, I didn't really care, as long as my boat wasn't going to go for a wander during the night.
My boat is already rigged with a CQR as the main anchor and a Bruce as a backup.
With some good guidance, Paul came over and checked out the ground tackle. He told us of some extra items that were needed. After a trip to the chandlery, Paul showed me how to very technically wire up the new swivels to the anchor and chain (which will never ever come loose) and he taught Hendo how to splice a rope into a snubber.
We had some of it down, but he ran us through it all again. He told us to Angle the boat towards the wind until in the desired position, keeping in mind depth, swing area, etc. Once in position, Put the boat in neutral and drop the anchor with the desired length of chain at 4x depth. Once chain is out, put the boat into reverse until the anchor grabs. Then, put the vessel hard into reverse for as long as it takes to have a cigarette (none of us smoked, though we have since thought about taking it up just for this exercise) at that point the anchor should be fully set. Let out more chain at another 3x depth for good measure.
Other than hurricane night this proved to be incredibly successful.
