my new anchor

Wow....so far three pages of Anchor porn....love it.

FlyWright Wrote;
"You're sure working hard with that anchor setup, Eric. I'd love to see you get a modern windlass and start living the easy life on the hook. Wanna move 200 ft over that way? No problem...just push the button, move the boat and then push the other button."

That's what I've said for years. Winch and chain anchoring is for convenience. Not the ideal way to anchor.

Al if I had a 38' trawler it would be impractical or possibly impossible for me to anchor the way I do now. Anchoring on bigger trawlers is limited to machines because the gear is just too big and heavy to do it by hand. I start my cars and trucks by electric motors for the same reason. I start my chain saw, roto-tiller and weed eater by hand because it's the best way to do it.

It would be silly of me to employ an expensive winch and lots of heavy and expensive chain to to a job that's easily done by hand. My boat is lighter, my wallet has more money in it and I'm more aware of what I'm doing when I anchor by hand. And the combination rode of a given weight holds the boat better.

When I get older or when I get a bigger boat (not likely) I'll probably use a winch and a lot more chain. When I'm 85 stumbling around on the bow anchoring may not be a pretty picture. I'll probably get the winch and all chain. Or (preferably) if I find it to be dependable I'll use a winch made for a combination rode. Because it's best ... you know my opinion. If I find the splice to be unacceptable I'll use all chain as an inferior substitute.

Mule said:

Wow....so far three pages of Anchor porn....love it.

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Well its all that dang Alaskan's fault since the State closed down the floating strip club!!!

FlyWright said:

A fishfinder can tell you loads about your anchor position and the bottom environment. ...

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Al, next time you ride the Coot (sometime in March or April for a boys' day-trip to Martinez?), I'd like to pick your brain on interpreting the readings on my Garmin fishfinder.

markpierce said:

Al, next time you ride the Coot (sometime in March or April for a boys' day-trip to Martinez?), I'd like to pick your brain on interpreting the readings on my Garmin fishfinder.

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I'd have to read your manual first. Do you have one?

My Muir is freefall too. It occurs to me that powered payout may enable a skipper to match freefall to the boat moving back from the initial drop position. The clutch/brake is pretty much on or off, I don`t think it offers an adjustable payout rate.

That's a good point Bruce.
Would be handy if the feed out rate was about the same or a bit more as one would normally back down.

The 105 ft/min rate on my Lewmar is approximately 1 kt. I don't worry about matching the speed but try not to exceed it while setting the anchor. Sometimes the current is grater than 1 Kt, but I usually start with a bit of extra chain near the drop point before starting to drift back.

psneeld said:

Mine is free fall only for right now (the OP used it that way for 24 years and me for 4)....hard to keep REAL smooth unless the clutch is perfect...but I never worry about a too big of pile of chain while freefalling.


Never have to worry either about getting the anchor down REAL fast in deep water during an emergency.

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psn,
I think you would find a good marine sparky would be able to wire your winch to be power up and down. My old original Nilson was power up only, (before I bough it), but the PO had had it converted. I only found this out reletively recently when the thing started to get a bit temporamental, and needed a recon of the brushes etc. The guy who did it said, "oh, yes, I remember this winch. I added in the power down function".

Peter B said:

psn,
I think you would find a good marine sparky would be able to wire your winch to be power up and down. My old original Nilson was power up only, (before I bough it), but the PO had had it converted. I only found this out reletively recently when the thing started to get a bit temporamental, and needed a recon of the brushes etc. The guy who did it said, "oh, yes, I remember this winch. I added in the power down function".

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I can do it...the windlass will accept it with the proper wiring...just haven't gotten around to it as I find freefall OK too as I have used both types quite a bit.


Way too many more important projects gnawing at me.

BruceK said:

My Muir is freefall too. It occurs to me that powered payout may enable a skipper to match freefall to the boat moving back from the initial drop position..

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Everyone has or develops their own technique for deploying their anchor. We were taught the technique that we continue to use. We start the boat moving very slowly backwards. Sometimes the current or wind is enough to do this. If not, we'll give the boat a quick shot in reverse on one engine to get the slow rearward drift going.

We then power the anchor down to the bottom. Once it gets there we feed the chain out in relatively short "pulses" because the Tigres windlass is very fast. By deploying the chain in relativley short bursts, it will (we think) end up in a fairly straight line across the bottom.

Once we have let out the desired amount of rode out--- we have a wire tie fastened to the chain every ten feet so if we want 120 feet of chain out we count 12 ties as they go past--- we set the anchor.

Our old windllass was power-retrieve only, but we followed the same procedure. The wildcat had a pretty good manual clutch system with multiple friction pads on both sides of the wildcat much like the drag system on a fishing reel or downrigger. So the brake wheel control of the anchor and chain going out was very good.