Bruce /claw style, innovative rope fixing position.

Has anyone taken this idea further in a full size boat?

On some level it makes sence, i could imagine that it would make it easier to get a snatched claw from the bottom but what should you use instead of the zip tie?

Personally I have not seen this before. Not saying it's good or bad but it caught my eye.

Yes but I think most only trust it for "short term", "daytime", "lunch hook"...etc...etc applications.

The are engineered snap devices that do the same as the wire tie...I can't recall the name but with a little effort on Google you may find it (maybe in anchor section of online catalogs or another member may post a link)

The size of the wire tie is dependent on how lucky you feel....I would have one that takes at least 50-100 pounds of pull to break which is a pretty big one....but that decision is purely subjective on whether I'm going to leave the boat/go to sleep.

The idea has been around for a long time. Somewhere I have a very old copy of Chapmans that shows it. A few years ago a company made a fancy shackle kind of thing with a shear pin in it. I haven't seen one in a while. A tie wrap or twine seem to work just as well. Usually chain is used but I've seen a length of cable run forward along the shank and the chain shackled to the cable. The small diameter allows the shank to bury. I usually see fishermen using it when they know they'll be anchoring in rocks.

Here's a similar product with an engineered shear bolt strength. Just a little more scientific than a large tie-wrap, but maybe not much.

Anchor Saver® How It Works October 2010 V3.mp4 - YouTube

Most of the charter boat guys use the Claw w this rig in Thorne Bay Alaska.

That would be fine if you stay on the boat and stay awake. Leave the boat for a while or use this technique overnight while sleeping and your boat could break loose and end up out to sea or on the rocks.

A trip line is a much safer solution.

Yes - Marin likes the trip line too. The pic is of my trip line float in Red Bay on the north end of Prince of Wales Is. NW of Ketchikan.

We use our trip line whenever we think we may have problems retrieving the anchor. This is particularly the case as we go farther north and many of the anchorages are old logging camp sites with cables, chains, pipes, and Lord knows what on the bottom.

Sometimes the nature of the bottom is called out in the cruising guides but very often it is not. So we take a "better safe than sorry" approach with the trip line. It's very easy to deploy and retrieve so it requires no more effort to use it than it does to not use it.

Didja ever get the tripline tangled in the running gear when the tide changed? I have - it's not an option for me anymore.

Nope, never have. We take the slack out of the tripline after the anchor's set so the tripline float is always sitting right over the anchor with its line pretty much straight up and down.

It's actually pretty cool to watch the relationship of the boat to the anchor change almost continuously with the wind and current. Really drives home the realization of how much boats move around up here.

jeffnick said:

Didja ever get the tripline tangled in the running gear when the tide changed? I have - it's not an option for me anymore.

Click to expand...

Jeff, I picked up this bit of widom from someone on this forum and it's so simple, I have to wonder why I've never seen it before:

Instead of tying the upper end of the trip line to your float, run it through a ring on the float and tie a small weight to the end. The weight keeps the float directly over the anchor and any slack is directly below the float.

Just make sure the line is no more than twice the depth of the water at low tide.

Marin wrote;

"We take the slack out of the tripline after the anchor's set"


WHAT?? Do you deploy your dinghy just to do that? How on earth would you do that otherwise? We just have two trip lines .. one 75ft and the other 50'.

rwidman said:

Jeff, I picked up this bit of widom from someone on this forum and it's so simple, I have to wonder why I've never seen it before:

Instead of tying the upper end of the trip line to your float, run it through a ring on the float and tie a small weight to the end. The weight keeps the float directly over the anchor and any slack is directly below the float.

Just make sure the line is no more than twice the depth of the water at low tide.

Click to expand...

We may anchor 3 or 4 times a day and I like to keep things simple. If it's nice and I'm worried about a foul bottom, I'll use the Rocna fisherman.


If it's nasty or for overnight, I use the big anchor and gamble that I'll get it up.

It's not only you that can tangle a trip line - any idiot passing thru can unhook you.

What would worry me most in that picture is the fact that the line is tied directly to the hole in the anchor. Very easy for that line to abrade by rubbing on the anchor around the hole in the shaft as the boat moves. Should have used a shackle to connect the line to the anchor.

What size line would you fellows suggest for the trip line on a 33 ft. boat?

Breaking strength of 1/4" nylon is about 1400 lbs.

Move up to 5/16" you get 2200 lbs

Either should do the trick.

SD

Labomba,

That's actually not so clear but bear in mind that it's there to break out a stuck anchor that won't come up w your normal rode. But the idea is to back it out so it may not need much tension on the line. But it may not be stuck in the typical manner so you may need to pull on it hard.

I use 1/2" line for the trip and 5/8" for the rode.

One should consider (in my opinion) how much trouble it is to deploy a heavier line. If it's fly stuff .. go bigger. Perhaps bigger than your rode. But clearly a trip line that's 1/2 the size of your rode is a very good trip line if it brings the anchor up.

manyboats said:

Marin wrote;

"We take the slack out of the tripline after the anchor's set"


WHAT?? Do you deploy your dinghy just to do that? How on earth would you do that otherwise? We just have two trip lines .. one 75ft and the other 50'.

Click to expand...

We take the dog ashore after we get anchored up. So no big deal to stop at the trip line float, coil the excess up allowing for the tidal range, and clip it off underneath the float.

Plus our dinghy takes about two minutes to deploy and is pretty much a one-handed operation. So launching and retrieving it is not anything we view as a task.

Marin said:

............ We take the slack out of the tripline after the anchor's set so the tripline float is always sitting right over the anchor with its line pretty much straight up and down..............

Click to expand...

What about changes in water depth from tides? Wind or wakes?

rwidman said:

What about changes in water depth from tides? Wind or wakes?

Click to expand...

We allow for the tidal range when we coil up the slack. Wind and wakes make no difference with regards to the trip line.

Marin said:

We allow for the tidal range when we coil up the slack. Wind and wakes make no difference with regards to the trip line.

Click to expand...

Either could make the water deeper than what you had planned for. You don't want the float pulling up on the anchor.

Has anyone taken this idea further in a full size boat?

Why would they?

A current reversal could trip this anchor out , so would be dangerous for anything but a day tripper.

To have a trip line self adjust our way is simple.

The line is secured to the anchor crown lead thru a small red float and secured to a sounding lead.

The lead on deck is sometimes a help , and if the length of line is less than 2x the water depth , its all automatic.

If the line is longer , the float ball wont be directly on top of the anchor ,but close enough to guide other anchoring boats.

Used every time , although not many times a year is a Hyd windlass not up to the task of anchor retreival.

Ron
There may be a big difference in typical anchoring depth between BC waters (where Marin is hanging a coil of excess trip line) and where you boat. Here we get nervous in water less than 20 ft deep and would never anchor there if 30 to 50' is available. Over 50' gets to be a pain for other reasons.
In 30' at low tide, it will go to 45 ft at high, so there will be aminimum of 1.5 scope on the trip at low tide. Not bad and still doesn't come over to greet the mother ship.

koliver said:

Ron
There may be a big difference in typical anchoring depth between BC waters (where Marin is hanging a coil of excess trip line) and where you boat. Here we get nervous in water less than 20 ft deep and would never anchor there if 30 to 50' is available. Over 50' gets to be a pain for other reasons.
In 30' at low tide, it will go to 45 ft at high, so there will be aminimum of 1.5 scope on the trip at low tide. Not bad and still doesn't come over to greet the mother ship.

Click to expand...

We take for granted our own boating area, often forgetting the vast differences that are present. We get nervous in depths OVER 20'.

My Bucket List got shorter by a line when we got to see a tide change for the Bay of Fundy.

One More Time Around: Tides