Anchoring quote of the day:

Quote of the day:

"If your anchor is not holding as well as you might like, consider your options. The insurance of having a good modern anchor may just let you sleep peacefully through the night secure in your chosen anchorage."

https://www.whiteseahorse.ie/publishing/HappyHooking.html

Anchoring Made Easy

“Anchoring Made Easy” was to have been the title of our anchoring book, had the publisher with whom we wanted to work had his way. Instead we named it “Happy Hooking – the Art of Anchoring”, as hooking your boat to the bottom in a lovely spot should always be fun and easy. Sadly, there are still some people out there who are clearly not having fun when they try to set their hook. We suppose they have not read the book – and their boat may not necessarily always stay put either. As our cruising takes us ever further afield, and we check the cruising guide for the anchorage in the harbor we would like to visit next, we often see statements like “anchorage marked on the chart has poor holding”. I write this as we are (very securely) anchored just below a picturesque castle in a beautiful bay on the west coast of Ireland. Once again the guide notes that this spot has poor holding. It’s at this point that it occurs to us that perhaps it was not the bottom that provided questionable holding but rather the anchor being used when the observation was made that was at fault.

Turkish Bling or the Real Thing?

Rocna and Ultra side by side As anchoring is perhaps the single most important part of boating, any mention of anchoring or gear preferences in the company of sailors is always sure to stir up a storm of commentary from all sides – even from people who may only rarely leave the dock. So when word of Quickline’s introduction of the Turkish manufactured Ultra Anchor to the US marketplace trickled into our consciousness, we just had to take a closer look. Long proponents of what we term as modern generation scoop type anchors, we have several older pieces of hardware decorating our front lawn. These include a huge Luke (fisherman-type), a smaller and very elegant collapsible fisherman, a massive CQR and a well-used Delta (maybe we should start a museum of anchoring). Had we any of the other types of anchors designed to plow, claw or drag through the bottom, these too would have become ornaments. As an old saying goes, “The plow was a great invention until some eejit made an anchor out of it.”

Anchoring Basics

A classic yawl enjoying a peaceful anchorage

Sometimes you just want to get away from it all; that’s when a mooring in a crowded anchorage just won’t do. Or what if you arrive somewhere and there are no more guest moorings available? Freedom is being able to drop your hook anywhere you need to without worrying about it letting loose at the worst of moments. We anchor often while we’re away, enjoying the privacy of our chosen locations at least as much as the camaraderie of mooring fields and docks. In all that anchoring, we’ve learned a trick or two we’d like to share.

Most anchorages consist of one of three types of bottoms: mud, sand, or rock, with mud being quite predominant. The cruising guides and harbor charts show you where the best anchorages are and what the bottom composition is likely to be, so there’s not much guesswork. Just bear in mind that how the cruising guides rate an anchorage may have more to do with the anchor they used, than how good or bad the holding actually is.

Usually the anchorages are in the prevailing lee of an island or shore. Depending on the conditions on a given day, different choices may provide the best holding ground in a particular harbor or reasonable access to shore side activities. You’ll have to weigh your options against your plans.

The best anchorage for any particular night depends on the weather conditions predicted. Listen to NOAA weather radio on your VHF first, then choose your spot for maximum protection from the wind and the waves to keep your family snug and comfortable all night long. If a scorcher is predicted, you’ll want to pick a spot where you’ll be able to scoop in some breezy relief.

After countless thousands of miles of cruising and anchoring under many trying conditions, we have settled on a few select anchors onboard. Our primaries have become the Ultra, the Rocna and the Spade, all new generation scoop type anchors. We deploy them off the bow, with all chain rode on the primary and a chain/rope combination on the secondary, and we absolutely need a windlass to manage them. We have been extremely pleased with the performance of each and have rarely had occasion to reset. All have been tested under conditions of more than 50 knots sustained wind and significant chop without incident. All scoop type anchors dig deep as the wind increases, they veer well, and do not pull out with drastic changes in wind and tide.

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