anchoring thoughts and motoring to take up the strain RE: [Rhodes22-list] anchoring obsession

[Mary Lou Troy]

Michael and all,
We've never actually used the motor to take up the strain in a storm 
anchoring situation but have had the motor fired up and ready to shift into 
gear. Windage in our boats is substantial, especially at night in cruising 
configuration (pop-top cover & bimini up). A couple of years ago we were 
anchored in Swan Creek (with our old set up, a 9 lb Danforth and 16 feet of 
chain, 7:1 scope) when a thundersquall approached. The WX radio was calling 
for "possible" gusts in excess of 40 knots. Swan Creek is iffy holding 
ground - it's good mud but there's a lot of junk on the bottom. We seemedl 
dug in but there was a three boat raft-up not too far away and many other 
boats behind us.  As the wind picked up we decided to start the motor just 
in case we needed maneuverability if the raft-up started dragging or to 
take some of the strain off of our rode if we started dragging. As it 
turned out I don't think the winds got over 35 knots and we and the raftup 
held so we just put about 40 minutes of running time in the motor until the 
storm blew out. It was pretty wild for the duration. We were swinging at 
anchor quite a bit though not as far as we do on quieter evenings and the 
raftup really moved around as the wind shifted as the storm passed through. 
One of the things we think about when anchoring is: will there be enough 
room if boats swing differently? We got a good demonstration that night of 
boats swinging differently in the same wind conditions. A couple of boats 
behind us dragged and reanchored successfully - at least they were in 
different places the next morning so I assume that's what happened. When we 
pulled anchor in the morning we had a lot of mud on one fluke and not much 
on the other. We might have only ever had one fluke dug in or we might have 
been rocking back and forth as we swung, I don't know but I suspect that it 
just dug in on the angle and the strain from the wind just dug that side in 
further. The chain, except for the last foot or so was cleaner than usual 
so I'm sure it was off the bottom for at least part of the time. The last 
foot or so was very muddy and may have helped the Danforth stay put.

At Annapolis boatshow lastOctober we found a very good deal on a Fortress 
FX-11 and started experimenting with a new configuration. The 9 lb Danforth 
had served us well, especially after we added another 10 feet of chain but 
the weight of the chain made it harder to move the bag of anchor and chain 
around on deck and harder to retrieve. Fortress recommends 6 ft for 25 ft. 
of water or less so that's what we are trying figuring we might as well 
start with the lightest and see how it does. The whole set up has more 
theoretical holding power and is much lighter than the Danforth. We only 
had one chance to try it in the fall. I was able to get a good set on the 
second try. One of the reasons I have been reluctant to more away from the 
slightly undersized Danforth (it had been the "storm" anchor on our Com-Pac 
16) was that I really knew how to set it and knew when it was well set. Now 
I'm starting over with the Fortress. We're keeping the Danforth as an 
easily reachable second anchor because I know how to set it.

BTW, according to a table in the Fortress literature we can only put a load 
of 160 lbs on our anchor setting it with an 8 hp motor. That was determined 
by pulling against a bollard so I suspect it's even less with our Honda 
outboard in reverse.

In any event anchoring is as much art as it is science. In a blow, you want 
to have the science as the basis for what you are doing but if you couldn't 
get your anchor to set properly or the holding ground is poor the science 
may not be as much of a factor. Every weekend we watch people (hopefully 
with anchors new to them or in charter boats) plowing up the anchorages, 
backing all over the place. We've watched people try over and over again to 
set an anchor and finally motor off to some other place or maybe a marina 
without ever having set the anchor. Or other folks motor to a stop, drop 
anchor and never put a tug on the rode to see if it's set. We watch those 
boats very carefully if they are anywhere near us. Often conditions are so 
benign it doesn't matter but we watch them anyway.

Our anchoring experiences have been good but limited to Chesapeake mud. 
We've spent a lot of nights on the hook and learned a lot from watching 
others and from anchoring ourselves. It does take practice. It's the only 
way you learn. The only time I'm sure we dragged was where we were the 
anchor boat in a 5 R22 raftup in Swan Creek. In retrospect we should have 
had the Kaynor's Raven as the anchor boat - their anchor was bigger but it 
was a calm afternoon when we anchored - the wind picked up at the tail end 
of happy hour so no harm done. The only time we've been dragged down on was 
very scary when a large power boat dragged into our Com-Pac 16 when we were 
on a mooring. He got his motor started and got off of us before any damage 
was done. In retrospect I probably should have been on the bow ready to cut 
the line so we could get out of his way if necessary.

I've read all of Bill's arguments before and I must say that his 
observations on LIS (?, i think?) are very different from ours on the 
Chesapeake but I've thought about them as I've analyzed various anchoring 
situations and maybe they shed some new light on a situation or two. Some 
of that thinking may have influenced our decision to try a lighter weight 
set-up. If we ever take the boat somewhere where we will be anchoring in 
sand (though there are sandy bottoms on the Chesapeake) and rock we'll 
re-think our anchors and chain again.

My nickels worth. BTW, the attached picture is of the 5 R22s in Swan Creek 
BEFORE the raft broke up.

Mary Lou
1991 R22  Fretless
Ft. Washington, PA / Swan Creek, MD




At 01:41 AM 1/14/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>The problem, how much time do you have to do the "prep" work???
>
>Never hurts, but could your time be spent getting off the lee shore,
>using land to mask the storm, heading for deeper water?
>
>BTW you can use the motor to take some of the force off the anchor, but
>take it easy you do not want to run over the rode and loose both the
>anchor and motor. -mjm
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org [mailto:rhodes22-list-
> > bounces at rhodes22.org] On Behalf Of Peter Thorn
> > Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 4:29 PM
> > To: Rhodes 22 List Members
> > Subject: [Rhodes22-list] anchoring obsession
> >
> > GlacierRon, Dave, Bill or anybody:
> >
> > You have me thinking about anchors and not getting any work done  :)
> >
> > Suppose I'm out in the Pamlico Sound, with it's mucky bottom in 20' of
> > water
> > and a squall comes up.  Would it help to use the lunch hook, a 10#
>steel
> > mushroom anchor with a 3/8" nylon rode, as a Kellet  shackled to the
>storm
> > anchor rode?   The storm anchor is FX11 Fortress with 16' of 1/4"
>proof
> > coil
> > chain plus 3/8" three strand nylon rode?  Or, could it just make
>things
> > worse?
> >
> > Any thoughts welcome.
> >
> > PT
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list
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