Emergency (Stern) Anchor

[Terra Nova]

Originally Posted by Neeltje

...I think I'll keep the Danforth and use an all rope rode...

NO! The Danforth (any anchor, really) needs a length of chain attached to the rope rode for it to set reliably. But other anchor designs may set faster.

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by thinwater

a. You NEVER place an anchor with significant way on, particularly a danforth. There is an excellent chance it will simply glide. If not, you still have only a 1-second window for it to catch. You need to stop the boat.

I'm still thinking about this. I have memories of my father and his buddies telling stories about landing craft coming into beaches of South Pacific islands in WWII.

Way I remember the stories, the USN landing craft used to power into the beaches and, some distance off, drop a big Danforth or two. The landing craft would keep powering in, ending with the ramp down and the GIs, tanks, trucks etc moving onto the beach.

Then the ramp would close and the windlasses - not the props in reverse - would pull the landing craft back out to the anchor.

Those stories of Danforths being dropped at speed might have been empty talk. Or my poor memory.

And they were cases of an anchor being set uphill - in the direction of a shelving beach.

Al

[JPA Cate]

Jacques,

In the days when we had a 30 footer, we once tried to drop the Danforth (20 lbs., 30 ft. of chain) in the 4 kn. tidal current off Racoon Straits in San Francisco Bay. What happened was that the Danforth sailed along on its flukes. A previous time, in only a little current, it did hold us.

So my first concern is whether your 100# Danforth will sail away towards the bridge on its flukes, or if it will sink fast enough with the chain, which will add a lot to the weight. My next concern is how you actually deploy all this gear.

For a moment, assume that your engine did fail, you hove the Danforth plus chain over, off the stern, and it did stop the current from setting you down on top of the bridge. What is your plan for getting it back aboard? and under way again?

Again, good luck with it.

Ann

[Neeltje]

Thanks once again for your suggestions, and for the reasons mentioned above, I WILL add a length of chain to the Danforth.

This said, my worst case scenario assumes that I'm dead in the water (holding for a drawbridge) when the engine dies, and that only the current is carrying me forward, so I don't quite see how the 100-lb. anchor could "sail on its flukes", as opposed to dropping straight down. The way I see it, the only relative motion involved would be that of the current vs. the bottom when the anchor finally lands.

Unless I also install a boom winch of some sort, retrieving that much anchor and chain after the fact is definitely going to be a problem, but I'm not above eventually cutting it loose if it can save my boat and a bridge...

The good part is that I might get lucky enough to be able to use my bow and stern thrusters to push her out of harms way and beach her before it comes to that, but I like the idea of having a Plan B just in case.