My wife and I were talking about anchors last night. I finished a passage in "Cruising with Serrafyn" where the Pardey's were fed up with the performance of inexpensive Danforths and moved onto plow anchors and 300 feet of chain.
The 25D I'm looking at has two danforths... a few feet of chain and the rest nylon rode.
What kind of anchors and chain/nylon rigs are people using out there?What would be a good length/size of chain and anchor weight? I'm wondering how much that anchor locker can hold and at what point there would be too much weight on the bow.
Thanks!
Bob
dugan@cs.rpi.edu
Anchors & Rodes for Cape Dory 25D
Moderator: Jim Walsh
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Clay Stalker
Re: Anchors & Rodes for Cape Dory 25D
Hi Bob:Bob Dugan wrote: My wife and I were talking about anchors last night. I finished a passage in "Cruising with Serrafyn" where the Pardey's were fed up with the performance of inexpensive Danforths and moved onto plow anchors and 300 feet of chain.
The 25D I'm looking at has two danforths... a few feet of chain and the rest nylon rode.
Really depends where you will be sailing. Personally, the majority of my cruising is in Narragansett Bay and the Islands where the bottom is almost always mud. I use a Fortress FX-16 for my CD27, a bit oversized but still easy to handle. I have 30 ft. of chain and 200 feet of nylon rode....never worry a bit about dragging or being on a shortened scope in tight harbors. If you will be anchoring in a wide variety of conditions, the CQR plow or Delta are hard to beat. Some folks swear by the Bruce, and I have used these also with some success....they set and reset quickly...but I just don't think they have the holding power of the CQR or Fortress. You will get a lot of good information on this board, with many different opinions because folks feel strongly about their anchoring choices...my opinions are just that....opinions, but I have used many of the anchors out there, and I think the Fortress is the best fluke type and the CQR the best plow...The more chain you use, the shorter scope you can get by with, but you do sacrifice stretch which can save you on a windy night...In summary, all depends on the bottom, conditions, and crowds where you will be sailing most. Happy anchoring!
Clay Stalker
CD27 Salsa #247
Bristol Harbor, Rhode Island
Bob Dugan wrote: What kind of anchors and chain/nylon rigs are people using out there?What would be a good length/size of chain and anchor weight? I'm wondering how much that anchor locker can hold and at what point there would be too much weight on the bow.
Thanks!
Bob
cstalker@cheshire.net
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Will W.
Re: Anchors & Rodes for Cape Dory 25D
Hi Bob
Just a quick thought. 300 feet of chain for a 25 foot boat seems a bit much. Not to mention awfully cumbersome. Space considerations come into play here as well. I like danforth anchors because they fold away nicely and they do a good job in the Chesapeake mud where I sail. If you are doing a lot of cruising and will encounter a number a bottom types then I would probably change one of the danforths to a bruce. Thats just me though. Oh yeah I only carry 20 feet of heavy chain but I back it up with several hundred feet of rode in two sizes and with different stretch qualities. The rope is lighter and it seems you can never have enough rope sometimes. Again in different territory I might choose differently.
Will Wheatley
Suzi Q
CD25
willwheatley@starpower.net
Just a quick thought. 300 feet of chain for a 25 foot boat seems a bit much. Not to mention awfully cumbersome. Space considerations come into play here as well. I like danforth anchors because they fold away nicely and they do a good job in the Chesapeake mud where I sail. If you are doing a lot of cruising and will encounter a number a bottom types then I would probably change one of the danforths to a bruce. Thats just me though. Oh yeah I only carry 20 feet of heavy chain but I back it up with several hundred feet of rode in two sizes and with different stretch qualities. The rope is lighter and it seems you can never have enough rope sometimes. Again in different territory I might choose differently.
Will Wheatley
Suzi Q
CD25
Bob Dugan wrote: My wife and I were talking about anchors last night. I finished a passage in "Cruising with Serrafyn" where the Pardey's were fed up with the performance of inexpensive Danforths and moved onto plow anchors and 300 feet of chain.
The 25D I'm looking at has two danforths... a few feet of chain and the rest nylon rode.
What kind of anchors and chain/nylon rigs are people using out there?What would be a good length/size of chain and anchor weight? I'm wondering how much that anchor locker can hold and at what point there would be too much weight on the bow.
Thanks!
Bob
willwheatley@starpower.net
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Dana, CD26
Re: Anchors & Rodes for Cape Dory 25D
Bob,
Had the same questions a number of years ago. Settled on a 20# CQR (bow roller will not hold the 25#) and I have about 40' of 3/8" chain, a couple hundread feet of 1/2" braid anchor line. I like the CQR because it will handle most bottoms, will turn and reset automatically in those T-Storms whose winds directions go 360 degrees on you, etc.
For coastal crusing, 1 lb anchor per foot boat (heavy anchor)and chain = 1-1/2 boats lengths.... You can use 5/16" chain (one size down) if you feel the 3/8" is just a bit big. I like the extra sag for pulling horizontal on the bottom.
[img]http://members.aol.com/darenius/CapeDory/anchor.jpg[/img]
darenius@aol.com
Had the same questions a number of years ago. Settled on a 20# CQR (bow roller will not hold the 25#) and I have about 40' of 3/8" chain, a couple hundread feet of 1/2" braid anchor line. I like the CQR because it will handle most bottoms, will turn and reset automatically in those T-Storms whose winds directions go 360 degrees on you, etc.
For coastal crusing, 1 lb anchor per foot boat (heavy anchor)and chain = 1-1/2 boats lengths.... You can use 5/16" chain (one size down) if you feel the 3/8" is just a bit big. I like the extra sag for pulling horizontal on the bottom.
[img]http://members.aol.com/darenius/CapeDory/anchor.jpg[/img]
darenius@aol.com
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Tom
Re: Anchors & Rodes for Cape Dory 25D
I agree completely with what the others have said. It all depends upon what kind of sailing you are going to do. When we sailed to the Bahamas we saw an awful lot of Bruces and many people said they were the best anchors they ever used. Of course, the Bahamas are mainly sand and mud with clear water so you can see your set. In places where you have rocky bottoms the Bruce can be hard to set because of that long forward edge rather than a point. It's sort of like try to drive a snow shovel into a pile of rocks. Same problem with grassy bottoms. To push through difficult bottoms anything pointed like a Danforth or CQR penetrated better.
Every chandlery has a pile of Danforths out back where the flukes have been bent outward and won't dig in. You would think the High Tensile Danforth would fix this problem, but Danforth made the shank more slender in the high tensile version, thus nullifying all the advantage you got with the high tensile steel. The Danforth sets pretty good in grassy bottoms because of the points on the flukes and it digs right in in sand and mud. If you get in one of those ultimate storms though and it has to really dig they tend to bend. Compare the cross section of steel in the Danforth to the cross section of a CQR or Bruce and you'll see there is no comparison in terms of bend resistance. Danforths also have a downside that the Bruce or CQR does not have.
They tend to do what is called "porpoise" in extreme conditons. If your boat is moving through the water the pressure of the water on the flukes flips the flukes up. This is like when you're diving and you want to come up you tilt your hands up like a rudder and come to the surface. When the Danforth flukes flip up the anchor rides up to the surface and pops out just like a porpoise taking a breath. Once it's airborne the flukes flip down and it dives back into the water but once it hits the water the flukes flip up from the water pressure again and the anchor surfaces once again. Thus as you are getting up more and more way and your boat has fallen off and is sailing handily downwind, you see your anchor behind you at the surface hopping out of the water and into the air like a porpoise following you. Entertaining but when you're among other boats and trying to get anchored it can be really frustrating. You will never see your CQR or Bruce go airborne behind you as you rip through the fleet at 6 knots.
This is an argument for the burying type anchors and as the pressure builds they keep getting deeper. After a blow I once saw a CQR completely buried alongwith 10 feet of chain inder the sand. It was headed for China and no easy feat to get it back up. Downside to the burying anchors though is that they are heavy, awkward to stow, and to dig right they need a lot of chain - all chain. So once again it comes down to the kind of sailing you plan to do. If you're going to sail in your local area and the bottoms are mainly sand and mud and you don't expect to run into any coral heads where you can chafe your nylon rode when the tide changes, and you don't expect to be riding out the ultimate storm on it, then the Danforth is, pound for pound, a terrific anchor. Incredible holding power for its weight, sets easily and quickly, is easy to stow and is much cheaper than the big guys.
If you're planning a trip around the world where you might get caught in some marginal anchorages with coral and have to ride out a blow on a lee shore then I don't think you would want only a Danforth for your primary anchor. Then you would want a burying type with as much chain as you can carry. And you want the Drop Forged kind that cost a fortune not the cheap copy versions that aren't forged. And if you're carrying that much chain and anchor you're going to need a windlass to hoist it up so the dollars keep adding up.
In addition to that though, you would still want a Danforth type on board. Virtually everybody uses a Danforth for a stern anchor and a lunch hook in pleasant weather because they are so easy to deploy and have all the other advantges. If, in the kind of sailing you do, it's not likely that you will be caught out in the ultimate blow, then you don't have to max out, but of course, it's always nice to have if your pocketbook can stand the strain.
I lost a boat on the beach at Cabo San Lucas in 1973 because the nylon rode parted - actually chafed through. You won't catch me with only nylon rode on my anchor. On my CD 31 I carry 200 feet of BBB 5/16 in. chain and a 33 lb Bruce. BBB chain has thicker links and therefore is heavier per foot than the standard proof coil. I would carry more if I had room, but shackled on the end of the chain is 200 additional feet of 5/8 nylon three strand. I carry several 30 foot lengths of additional chain that can be shackled together to add chain or to put between anchors and rode if need be.
I also carry a 45 lb. CQR. I carry a 13S Danforth and a Northill that isn't rated in pounds, but it's the forged type not the welded version that Danforth went to when they bought Northill out. Jacques Cousteau's Calypso used a Northill as their main bower as you may know.
I once had all four of my anchors out at once in the Berry Islands during a blow, and sat up all night on anchor watch on top of that. A narrow pass between the islands where you couldn't get much scope out and a ripping tide that rushes between the islands ninety degrees to the wind. As the Bahamian Captain on the Mail Boat said on the radio the next day "Jolly Shitty Weather".
The rule of thumb on burying type anchors is a pound of anchor for every foot of length of boat as a minimum. If you're using nylon rode a length of chain as long as your boat between it and your anchor as a minimum.
BTW I often see in print that a disadvantage of chain is the smap when it comes taught. I've never understood why a Captain would let his boat come taught against chain. It's easy enough to put in a length of nylon rode as a shock absorber. As you're letting out your chain you attach a length of line and then let out whatever you need for shock absorption and then attach it to the chain again with a loop of chain hanging loose. You can also use one of those rubber snubbers from West or Boats to cushion the snap. If the line breaks or the snubber comes loose, the chain stretches taught again and wakes you up with a snap so you can attend to it.
To some extent I think anchoring choice is also cultural. In the Bahamas we saw mainly nylon rodes and wind generators. On the West Coast of Mexico and the Sea of Cortez 80 to 90 percent of the boats were on chain and most boats had solar panels. You don't see one wind generator per thousand boats out West here, but almost all serious cruisers have solar panels. Of course I suppose many of the boats in Mexico were on the way to the South Seas and places beyond. Sailors on chain curse the nylon rode people in Mexico. In small crowded anchorages nylon people would put out 300 feet of line and swing a huge swath. Few boats use stern anchors and the chain guys were packed tight all swinging together with the tide. In the Bahamas most people anchored fore and aft or with a Bahamian moor because that's the way Wilensky said it should be done 40 years ago in the guide book or something. There's probably a Master's Thesis to be written about the history of anchoring techniques...
Hope this helps. There's nothing like losing a boat on the beach to make you get serious about anchors and anchoring. There's many ways to do it ("it" being anchoring - not losing a boat, although there's lots of ways to do that too), but this is my two cents worth. Any question about anchors generally starts a lively debate so get those salvos primed
TomCambria@mindspring.com
Every chandlery has a pile of Danforths out back where the flukes have been bent outward and won't dig in. You would think the High Tensile Danforth would fix this problem, but Danforth made the shank more slender in the high tensile version, thus nullifying all the advantage you got with the high tensile steel. The Danforth sets pretty good in grassy bottoms because of the points on the flukes and it digs right in in sand and mud. If you get in one of those ultimate storms though and it has to really dig they tend to bend. Compare the cross section of steel in the Danforth to the cross section of a CQR or Bruce and you'll see there is no comparison in terms of bend resistance. Danforths also have a downside that the Bruce or CQR does not have.
They tend to do what is called "porpoise" in extreme conditons. If your boat is moving through the water the pressure of the water on the flukes flips the flukes up. This is like when you're diving and you want to come up you tilt your hands up like a rudder and come to the surface. When the Danforth flukes flip up the anchor rides up to the surface and pops out just like a porpoise taking a breath. Once it's airborne the flukes flip down and it dives back into the water but once it hits the water the flukes flip up from the water pressure again and the anchor surfaces once again. Thus as you are getting up more and more way and your boat has fallen off and is sailing handily downwind, you see your anchor behind you at the surface hopping out of the water and into the air like a porpoise following you. Entertaining but when you're among other boats and trying to get anchored it can be really frustrating. You will never see your CQR or Bruce go airborne behind you as you rip through the fleet at 6 knots.
This is an argument for the burying type anchors and as the pressure builds they keep getting deeper. After a blow I once saw a CQR completely buried alongwith 10 feet of chain inder the sand. It was headed for China and no easy feat to get it back up. Downside to the burying anchors though is that they are heavy, awkward to stow, and to dig right they need a lot of chain - all chain. So once again it comes down to the kind of sailing you plan to do. If you're going to sail in your local area and the bottoms are mainly sand and mud and you don't expect to run into any coral heads where you can chafe your nylon rode when the tide changes, and you don't expect to be riding out the ultimate storm on it, then the Danforth is, pound for pound, a terrific anchor. Incredible holding power for its weight, sets easily and quickly, is easy to stow and is much cheaper than the big guys.
If you're planning a trip around the world where you might get caught in some marginal anchorages with coral and have to ride out a blow on a lee shore then I don't think you would want only a Danforth for your primary anchor. Then you would want a burying type with as much chain as you can carry. And you want the Drop Forged kind that cost a fortune not the cheap copy versions that aren't forged. And if you're carrying that much chain and anchor you're going to need a windlass to hoist it up so the dollars keep adding up.
In addition to that though, you would still want a Danforth type on board. Virtually everybody uses a Danforth for a stern anchor and a lunch hook in pleasant weather because they are so easy to deploy and have all the other advantges. If, in the kind of sailing you do, it's not likely that you will be caught out in the ultimate blow, then you don't have to max out, but of course, it's always nice to have if your pocketbook can stand the strain.
I lost a boat on the beach at Cabo San Lucas in 1973 because the nylon rode parted - actually chafed through. You won't catch me with only nylon rode on my anchor. On my CD 31 I carry 200 feet of BBB 5/16 in. chain and a 33 lb Bruce. BBB chain has thicker links and therefore is heavier per foot than the standard proof coil. I would carry more if I had room, but shackled on the end of the chain is 200 additional feet of 5/8 nylon three strand. I carry several 30 foot lengths of additional chain that can be shackled together to add chain or to put between anchors and rode if need be.
I also carry a 45 lb. CQR. I carry a 13S Danforth and a Northill that isn't rated in pounds, but it's the forged type not the welded version that Danforth went to when they bought Northill out. Jacques Cousteau's Calypso used a Northill as their main bower as you may know.
I once had all four of my anchors out at once in the Berry Islands during a blow, and sat up all night on anchor watch on top of that. A narrow pass between the islands where you couldn't get much scope out and a ripping tide that rushes between the islands ninety degrees to the wind. As the Bahamian Captain on the Mail Boat said on the radio the next day "Jolly Shitty Weather".
The rule of thumb on burying type anchors is a pound of anchor for every foot of length of boat as a minimum. If you're using nylon rode a length of chain as long as your boat between it and your anchor as a minimum.
BTW I often see in print that a disadvantage of chain is the smap when it comes taught. I've never understood why a Captain would let his boat come taught against chain. It's easy enough to put in a length of nylon rode as a shock absorber. As you're letting out your chain you attach a length of line and then let out whatever you need for shock absorption and then attach it to the chain again with a loop of chain hanging loose. You can also use one of those rubber snubbers from West or Boats to cushion the snap. If the line breaks or the snubber comes loose, the chain stretches taught again and wakes you up with a snap so you can attend to it.
To some extent I think anchoring choice is also cultural. In the Bahamas we saw mainly nylon rodes and wind generators. On the West Coast of Mexico and the Sea of Cortez 80 to 90 percent of the boats were on chain and most boats had solar panels. You don't see one wind generator per thousand boats out West here, but almost all serious cruisers have solar panels. Of course I suppose many of the boats in Mexico were on the way to the South Seas and places beyond. Sailors on chain curse the nylon rode people in Mexico. In small crowded anchorages nylon people would put out 300 feet of line and swing a huge swath. Few boats use stern anchors and the chain guys were packed tight all swinging together with the tide. In the Bahamas most people anchored fore and aft or with a Bahamian moor because that's the way Wilensky said it should be done 40 years ago in the guide book or something. There's probably a Master's Thesis to be written about the history of anchoring techniques...
Hope this helps. There's nothing like losing a boat on the beach to make you get serious about anchors and anchoring. There's many ways to do it ("it" being anchoring - not losing a boat, although there's lots of ways to do that too), but this is my two cents worth. Any question about anchors generally starts a lively debate so get those salvos primed
Bob Dugan wrote: My wife and I were talking about anchors last night. I finished a passage in "Cruising with Serrafyn" where the Pardey's were fed up with the performance of inexpensive Danforths and moved onto plow anchors and 300 feet of chain.
The 25D I'm looking at has two danforths... a few feet of chain and the rest nylon rode.
What kind of anchors and chain/nylon rigs are people using out there?What would be a good length/size of chain and anchor weight? I'm wondering how much that anchor locker can hold and at what point there would be too much weight on the bow.
Thanks!
Bob
TomCambria@mindspring.com
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David Brownlee
Re: Anchors & Rodes for Cape Dory 25D
As always on this board, everyone is right, even though we disagree.
Some experiences from the Chesapeake Bay:
On our CD 27 we used a 16H Danforth as our working anchor for many seasons (22S as storm anchor). It had plenty of holding power, but we sometimes had a terrible time getting it to set in the hard sand encountered in places in Virginia. And we could accidentally pull it out when, in a reversing tide situation, the anchor rode wrapped around one of the flat plates where the shank is hinged to the stock. So we shifted to a CQR. Being weak and poor, we opted for the smallest, a 15 pounder, and it worked just fine--digging into any bottom (assisted sometimes with a double length of chain--see below) and re-setting easily when the tide or wind direction changed. Although small, it held us through a memorable, sustained 60-knot thunder squall in Grays Inn Creek.
Our CD 31 came with two Danforths, I think a 16H and a 25H(?). We've never used them, because we bought a 25 lb. CQR at the start of our first season, last year. Again, this is on the small side for our boat, because, while slightly richer, we are even weaker. Amazingly, we encountered another 60-knot thunder storm in Grays Inn Creek (this one had big hail, too), and it held just fine, like its little sister.
On both boats, we've used a combination rode of nylon and chain. In the shallow waters of the northern bay, we use just one length of chain (6 ft.), but farther south we add a second length, shackled to the first. I've never felt the need for more chain than that on the Chesapeake.
Ann and David Brownlee
CD 31 #1 "Windrush"
Havre de Grace, MD
dbrownle@sas.upenn.edu
Some experiences from the Chesapeake Bay:
On our CD 27 we used a 16H Danforth as our working anchor for many seasons (22S as storm anchor). It had plenty of holding power, but we sometimes had a terrible time getting it to set in the hard sand encountered in places in Virginia. And we could accidentally pull it out when, in a reversing tide situation, the anchor rode wrapped around one of the flat plates where the shank is hinged to the stock. So we shifted to a CQR. Being weak and poor, we opted for the smallest, a 15 pounder, and it worked just fine--digging into any bottom (assisted sometimes with a double length of chain--see below) and re-setting easily when the tide or wind direction changed. Although small, it held us through a memorable, sustained 60-knot thunder squall in Grays Inn Creek.
Our CD 31 came with two Danforths, I think a 16H and a 25H(?). We've never used them, because we bought a 25 lb. CQR at the start of our first season, last year. Again, this is on the small side for our boat, because, while slightly richer, we are even weaker. Amazingly, we encountered another 60-knot thunder storm in Grays Inn Creek (this one had big hail, too), and it held just fine, like its little sister.
On both boats, we've used a combination rode of nylon and chain. In the shallow waters of the northern bay, we use just one length of chain (6 ft.), but farther south we add a second length, shackled to the first. I've never felt the need for more chain than that on the Chesapeake.
Ann and David Brownlee
CD 31 #1 "Windrush"
Havre de Grace, MD
dbrownle@sas.upenn.edu