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Talk to me about anchors, chain and ropes


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Not all anchors and ropes are equal. You can use lighter anchors such as sarca and rocna to keep the size and weight down in small boats but still have incredible holding power compared with most anchors. The same goes for ropes, depending on manufacturer you can get a rope of 6mm with greater strength than ropes of 12mm, also better uv resistance. If you are pulling an anchor by hand, then some people like thicker rope but if you use something like an alderney rig then thinner rope might be the way to go. As general rule the minimum length of chain in 8mm would be the length of the boat, so a 5m boat minimum of 5m of chain, if you use lighter gauge then more length. I tend to double my chain length as I anchor in depths over 100m, which my thinner ropes and anchor style allow me to do so with just 2x1 ratio's. Make sure you get either galvanised or stainless chain or it will soon become a rusty mess.

 

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Other option is to buy fishy’s anchor set up. This will get you started for a good price. 
 

if you need more anchor rode then try MarineScene. They have off cuts at low prices. You can always splice 2 together to give a longer line. I use 3 strand 12mm easy to splice. 
 

I use marinescene off cuts for my dock lines. Splice a loop, cut to length and your away, lots cheaper. Once worn out (yes they do wear, stretch and fray on ends unless you backsplice) can use as fender lines or bin. 
 

As above, minimum 1x boat length of chain preferably 1.5 x boat length. Check your splices every few month, they can fray and you don’t want to tighten on anchor and it go ping! 
 

Look out on Facebook for chain, you can get some real bargains but it must be Galv. Stainless won’t be cheap but will be shiny 😉

Edited by Odyssey
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Oh be careful searching ropes and chains on google..... 😉 

Rode is your anchor line, it’s not called rope. White is standard colour. It’s worth splicing/painting markers every 10ft so you know how much you got out relative to depth. I don’t bother now as I can kind of guess through experience 

Edited by Odyssey
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17 minutes ago, JonC said:

Longer rope and flatter angle the better I think, 

That’s what I use 🙂 

When fishing out of Cardiff it would usually be in about 60ft of water max. So just let out of the rode until the clean stuff came out the locker and you’d be fine. Water so silty white rode goes brown 

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With small tidal streams in lyme bay I usually only put out  2 x depth of warp. It is not as it you are leaving the boat, so warp can be adjusted to suit.

As my boat is ‘open’ wndage is not an issue ........currently my anchor is a 3.5kg bruce with 6m of 6mm chain and 12 mm 3 strand nylon warp.

The ony time you need a lot of warp is anchoring wrecks.

Next year I am considering fitting a bow mounted trolling motor to use instead of an anchor. It would give me 5 to 8 hours anchor time and stay within 1m of the position.

Edited by GPSguru
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
On 2/5/2021 at 11:05 PM, Andy135 said:

So what happened here then? @LostPiker I'm guessing lockdown prevented you from picking up @Saintly Fish's gear?

Yes, I'm in Berkshire so can't claim a drive to the South Coast is essential. As soon as it is lifted I'll be rebooking my charter day and coming down to get the gear 

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8 minutes ago, LostPiker said:

Yes, I'm in Berkshire so can't claim a drive to the South Coast is essential. As soon as it is lifted I'll be rebooking my charter day and coming down to get the gear 

Good on you for sticking to the lockdown. Many don't.

I'm stuck inland too and missing the salt, but hey, better safe than sorry. We've all got to do our bit to beat the virus 👍

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