Minimum anchors size, what’s the point?

[RichMac]

There’s a popular idea that anchors should be minimum size, just big enough and no more.

The Delta anchor chart (and other brands) greatly underestimates the anchor size. For a 41ft yacht is suggests 10 or 16kg, but definitely not 20 or 25kg. The 51ft Bavaria that dragged into us the other night in Greece only had a 20kg Delta, he said he often drags (like other charter yachts), but the anchor is ok according to the Delta chart.

In the 2010 Kings Cup in Thailand, 12 yachts were wrecked on the beach at 5 am, and dozens were damaged by dragging collisions. My 41 ft Beneteau had an oversized 25kg Delta which held firm in the hard sand, the recommended 16kg may have dragged like the rest. That extra 9kg was a good investment!

What is the point of a minimum anchor? Is it to save money, or because we used to pull and stow our anchors by hand? On a 40ft+ cruising yacht, it can’t be the weight, we don’t think about the 300kg of water in our bow tanks.

The anchor is like a seat-belt in a car, protection against what we hope will never happen. The cruising yachtsman will encounter bad holding and extreme conditions where dragging has serious consequences. Surely we should fit the biggest anchor and chain that we can, and sleep better at night?