Anchoring from the Bowsprit

[John A]

I used a bracket simular to those used on a cats anchor chain. A line was attached to each side of the bracket and tied off at the bow cleats on each side of the bow. Not only did it hold the chain below the bobstay it made for a smoother ride when the chop increased because the attach point was aft of the bow.
I only used my secondary anchor with its rope rode when setting a second anchor and both anchors were set 45* to the bow.

[Play Actor]

As someone else mentioned, the bowsprit is part of the rig. A snubber through a snatch block at the end of the bowsprit is a time honored technique. The anchor loads are transfered to the forestay and the whisker stays. The bowsprit itself is always, and only, in compression, unless your rigging breaks. We've used this on Play Actor for literally thousands of days at anchor, in all conditions, including riding out two hurricanes. If your rig is sound, the bow sprit will be fine.

Aside from the inconvenience of attaching to the lower bobstay fitting, a snubber attached there will put tension on the fastenings, as someone else pointed out. That fitting is designed to withstand shear loads. Will it handle the load? Most likely, given that you rarely have more than a few hundred pounds of load on the snubber anyway.

So, take your choice. Either of these approaches avoids chafe problems, which can otherwise cause a snubber to part quickly in moderately choppy conditions.

[Pauls]

The load that your bowsprit can take is not a matter of opinion. It is very straightforward engineering, and you can estimate this accurately enough to determine if your bowsprit will take anchoring loads.

When the anchor is pulling down/forwards against the bowsprit the bowsprit is being supported vertically by the forestay. Measure your forestay, then look up the rated strength of the wire. The designer of your rig will have made the rest of the bowsprit and rigging strong enough to equal or exceed the breaking strength of the forestay.

I believe you will find that the bowsprit is capable to taking a load that exceeds what your anchoring gear can apply to it. Max anchoring load will equal the breaking strength of your chain.

If you want to be more accurate with the above you can draw out sprit/anchor rode and do what is called a vector analysis, this is simple and there are examples available on the web. But the above is a decent look at the strength of your rig. If you do this, draw the anchor rode straignt up and down, this will create the heaviest load on the rig.

Sailors have been successfully anchoring off the sprit for a long time. It is also an excellent way to increase comfort at anchor, as it reduces sailing around the anchor and helps hold the boat's head down in a chop.

Regards, Paul

[zeehag]

will have to change out the lower fitting and the backing plate and fasteners. is worth it--is a more stable method of mooring and snubbing to anchor, but is slow to release unless you build in some kind of quick release dealie==my neighbors used waterline snubbing at mooring and was 2 humans with one in dinghy and one on deck both to attach and to disengage the shackle from the mooring-our tag lines were 1 in chain, 3 ft long --you add your lines to that.

[rcmpegasus]

Having tried this once, I found that it worked fine when the wind and current were from the same direction, this resulted in a vertical load which as explained the forestay can handle well. If the wind and current are not aligned the boat started to swing and "sail" at anchor. When the swing ends there were quite large loads on the bowsprit in the horizontal direction which the bowsprit is not designed to handle. Bowsprit has very small stays on the horizontal plane. Sampson posts were really loaded because of the lever arm of the bowsprit. I switched to a double bridal and am planning on moving to a snubber connected below the bobstay during this refit.

[Play Actor]

You get a horizontal load on the bowsprit when you have a headsail up -- far larger than what you get sailing at anchor. That's why there are whisker stays, and it is designed to handle that.

If you want to understand this, do the vector analysis, as another post suggests. I think it was the same post which pointed out that you will sail less at anchor with the attachment point at the end of the bowsprit.