Anchoring

(Originally published in 2012)

A recent e-mail inquiry about our book sent to me by a future Caribbean cruiser has prompted me to think about all those nights we spent sitting at anchor. She and her family are still a couple years away from heading out yet, but are concerned about anchorages in the islands, the availability and reliability of preplaced moorings, and wondering about what to do and what to expect. I realize there are as many opinions about anchors and anchoring as there are sailors, but since it’s my website, I’ll offer mine up for consideration. I know this is opening a can of worms but if you have some worthwhile suggestions, let’s hear them. One thing I think everybody will agree with is that the most important contributor to good anchoring is to get out there and, in the words of the inimitable Roger Miller, just “do it, do it, do it.”

After four years of exclusively living on the hook, the most significant thing that I would do differently, is carry a much larger anchor. Our primary anchor for a good portion of our cruise was a 45-pound Delta. Our secondary anchor was a 33-pound Bruce. Somewhere in the Caribbean, my preference flip-flopped and the Bruce became our primary hook and the Delta was actually relegated to backup status behind our Fortress FX-37. We were limited by the fact that we carried a manual windlass, which really limited the size of the anchor we could readily deploy. If I were to do it over again, we would get a good power windlass and probably carry a primary anchor somewhere in the range of 80 to 100 pounds. I agree with author Don Casey. If you are living aboard your boat and cruising, that boat is your home. You need to protect your home, and the single most significant step toward doing that effectively is the size of your anchor. Among the same brand/style anchor there is no denying that heavy works better than light and big works better than small. When liveaboard cruising you should carry the biggest, heaviest anchor that your boat can reasonably accommodate without adversely affecting the boat’s performance. Obviously you also need to be able to handle that anchor in the event you need to remove it from the bow for a long offshore passage. So that’s another factor to consider. But the intent of Don Casey’s statement was to refute the anchor manufacturers’ “recommended anchor size” charts that they use for marketing their products. After all, their concern is selling anchors. Their recommendation is obviously going to be tempered by the need for you to spring for the cost of said anchor. After all, a 70-pound anchor is going to cost about twice as much as a 35-pound anchor, and if you are in the market, it’s much more likely that you will spend $350 rather than $700. The size anchor recommended for somebody who takes their boat out on weekends and an occasional weeklong, fair-weather cruise obviously has to be tempered by factors of practicality rather than the remote possibility of needing to save your boat in a worst-case scenario. Under the local or coastal cruising mentality, one also must seriously consider cost, and balance weight against convenience. When you live aboard your vessel, often far from normal civilization, you want your anchor to be as close as possible to tying up at a solid well-maintained, screwed-deeply-into-the-bottom mooring. And there is no question that bigger holds better and heavier digs in quicker – thus bigger and heavier.

So what can you do to make your anchoring experience better? The best suggestion that I can make is to always dive your anchor. If you tie to a mooring, dive that also. You’re betting your home and maybe your life, on your decision that you’re hooked in well. Don’t make assumptions. Make it a routine. Sometimes conditions won’t allow it; sometimes it’s too deep to dive for the average snorkeler, but, if you can, go down and look. When we were cruising, we spent a substantial amount of time anchored out or tied to a mooring in Culebra, usually in Dakity Bay at the entrance to Ensenada Honda. In Culebra the moorings are plentiful and they are free. If you are going to pick up a mooring here, you need to know that all year long the local Puerto Rican boats, very often large 40 and 50 foot cabin cruisers, come out and tie up to these moorings, usually stern-to. This exposes the large, flat, aft-end of these sizable vessels to the brunt of the trade winds in an effort to keep the boats well ventilated. To add insult to injury, this one big boat, already tied to the mooring, will then often invite friends to raft alongside, one on either side, and they too will raft up stern to the mooring. Now we have the huge flat aft-facing surface area of three large vessels exposed to the teeth of the trades, tripling the abuse being exerted on these moorings. The wind blows in through the large stern cabin doors and circulates throughout the boats, nature’s own air conditioning system. However this configuration of tying up stern-to results in tremendous pressure on the boat or boats, which is transferred to the mooring and all of its parts: rope, chain, shackles, swivels, and even the screw itself. If you dive these moorings you will often find worn, frayed ropes, and screws that have pulled several turns out of the bottom. We had one cruiser friend who walked out on deck one morning, coffee cup in hand, to find himself drifting toward shore with the parted mooring pennant still dangling from his bow cleat – fortunately, a disaster averted. We followed a program of redundancy where I would tie up to the mooring and, at the same time, drop my anchor with fifty feet or more of chain on top of it in hopes of it digging in in the event of a breakaway incident. Because I took the effort to do this, it never happened. Maybe it’s karma.

When we started cruising on the Great Lakes, I attempted to dive my anchor whenever possible – not the tropics, but just grit your teeth and jump in. At that time, we were using our Delta anchor and whenever I could tolerate the frigid water I usually found that I seemed to have a satisfactory hold in the soft sand of Lake Huron. However, once I got to the Caribbean and started diving not only our anchor but also most of the other anchors in the harbor for comparison, I found that most of the time Delta anchors seemed to have a rather disturbing tendency to land on their side and partially bury themselves in that position. They were popular and there were always a number of Deltas. It was out of a desire for a quick and convenient departure a couple of times when we were staging out of our anchorage that I started using the lighter Bruce anchor that we carried. The anchor had come with Fidelis when we bought her and I always felt it was far too light for the 37 foot, 28,000-pound behemoth, but it was definitely easier to wrestle aboard than the heavier Delta. I found that the Bruce seemed to bite into the sand and bury with very little effort, and never seemed to have an issue with dragging. It didn’t take long for the Bruce to supersede the Delta in the role of primary anchor. The Bruce seemed to be remarkably adept at burying itself deeply into the bottom on the first try, and then, once buried, the holding power was relentless. I was hooked (yes, pun intended)!

Our first experience with the Bruce was in Luperon in the Dominican Republic where the Bruce was considered to be the anchor of choice for digging its way down through the softer upper mud layer of the bottom and into the more solid substrate beneath. Once in place for a few days it became almost one with the bottom. Other anchors were not near so effective at that feat. However when we left LuperÓn I went back to the bigger Delta. Fortunately it didn’t take long for me to see the error of my ways and switch back over to the Bruce. One factor for us was the lack of a good power windlass. Our manual windlass, a Sea Tiger 555, was slow and, when retrieving the anchor, required my foot to hold the chain in place on the gypsy while it turned. Once I got the rode to the up-and-down position and broke the anchor loose, I inevitably ended up pulling the anchor the rest of the way aboard hand over hand. Not a big deal when we were anchored in our preferred 10 to 15 feet. But on a few occasions, like Honeymoon Bay on Water Island off St. Thomas, Ponce Harbor in Puerto Rico, and Christmas Cove, on St. James Island near St. Thomas, USVI, we found ourselves in considerably deeper water. In 35 feet of water you can add the weight of 35 feet of chain to that of the anchor, and suddenly my back hurts just thinking about it. Another reason for choosing the lighter Bruce and the superlightweight Fortress as our preferred hooks. Don’t let that be a factor for you. Get a good power windlass.

In your research, check out what’s popular but remember that anchor popularity seems less a function of scientific design or functional efficiency than a fad. The Delta was relatively new and unproven when we chose it for our Great Lakes weekender Jaja, but seemed more than satisfactory for that smaller, lighter, racing type boat. When we bought Fidelis, it seemed a no-brainer to just go with the same choice, but we should have given it more consideration. New anchors come and go and zillions of sailors jump on the latest anchor bandwagon. That sort of fad popularity tends to be in the world of weekend cruising. Out in the liveaboard, offshore cruising world the old standbys, the CQR, the Bruce, and the Danforth are likely still very popular, not that others aren’t worthy of consideration. At the time we were cruising, the CQR seemed to be top of the heap with the Delta gaining ground and the Bruce in there too. The Spade was on its rise. Now it’s the Rocna and Manson Supreme that are gaining. I always shunned the CQR, not because of anything other than the moving parts. I make my living with my fingers – surgery and music – and could not afford to sacrifice any of my digits to that huge hinge. Choosing the Delta was my homage to the popularity of the CQR, only without the hinge. It proved adequate but I wouldn’t choose it again. We carried two Fortresses, the Fortress FX-37 for routine use when the situation arose, and a humongous Fortress FX-55 whose shank was as tall as I am, for use in storm conditions. The 55 lived in a bag in the cockpit locker and was only ever deployed a couple of times; the 37 lived in a convenient bracket on the bow rail for swapping in when needed and found its way into use on a number of occasions. We also carried a 75-pound Fisherman anchor that was stowed in pieces down in the bilge for use under extreme circumstances. It was so heavy that the one time I assembled it in the dinghy and had it ready to deploy I knew there was no way I would ever get it back aboard. Needless, to say I never used it – a gargantuan paperweight. The Fortress, on the other hand, is a great general-purpose anchor to carry aboard and is useful under most common tradewind conditions.

So here is the meat of this whole topic:

IMPORTANT POINT: Decisions about which anchor(s) to carry should be based upon most commonly encountered conditions. Poor holding ground is exactly that. The best anchor you put into it is still stuck in poor holding ground. The anchor you use is usually not nearly as relevant as your own lapse in judgment for anchoring in that undesirable location. Anchoring in a grassy bottom seems fine until a massive chunk of sod breaks loose and remains in the maw of your anchor and won’t allow it to reset – been there, done that: i.e. Little Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan or Nassau Harbor in the Bahamas. I do not think it is wise to base your choice of anchor on conditions that you should be trying to avoid! That’s silly and naive. Use your heaviest anchor for that first night in port, keep a good watch, and then in the morning find a better anchorage.

So with all of my limited experience and sailing knowledge, other than the above paragraph you just read, my recommendation is to pick an anchor that you have found to be reliable in normal mud and sand type bottoms, and make it as heavy as you can reasonably handle. Beyond that, I obviously prefer the Bruce and the Fortress, but if what you choose works, that’s fine. Then make certain that your anchor rode and accessories are up to the job. We’ll talk about anchor rodes and accessories in another post.

Here is a site where you may find some helpful anchoring information: Take a look at http://www.distantshores.ca/boatblog_files/best-anchor-for-cruising.php.

And there are others.