Anchoring Setup ?

[RobD527]

What is your anchoring setup ?
Length ? all chain ? chain and rode ? anchor size ? Type ?

Im trying to lock down lengths for the Florida Keys and Bahamas but feel free to throw in wherever you are Cruising

Include boat size and where you do your cruising

[JeffH]

Ground Tackle

I’m between cruising boats right now. I’ve got a Catalina C-22 daysailor I’m putting back together right now, but her ground tackle is nothing interesting; a 8 pound Danforth, 18’ of light chain & a hundred feet or so of ½” 3-grand nylon that I hardly ever use seeing as she doesn’t yet have proper cleats nor proper backing plates, but I’m working on it.

But I used to own ¼ of a really sweet Morgan Out Island 41. I know some people think that Out Island 41’s can’t sail out of their own way, but this one wasn’t like that. She wasn’t what you might call close-winded, but fall off the wind even a little & she would keep up with anything her own size. We kept her here, where I’m back to now, on Florida’s Space Coast & we sailed her mostly from here to the keys & to the Bahamas with occasional trips to Puerto Rico or AmVir. At least, I never got any farther than that; some of the other partners went a bit further south on occasion.

I became very partial to what some people call the Bahamian Moor, 2 anchors set across the tidal flow far enough apart so you’d have enough scope & so you’d have between 45 & 90 degrees angle between the 2 anchor Rhodes. Your ship takes much less swing room when moored like that & we never had an anchor overset or drag.

For tackle, we had a 35 pound CQR on 100’ of 7/16” BBB & 200’ of 5/8” nylon 3-strand. Our 2nd anchor was a Danforth 22-H with 45’ of 7/16” BBB & 100’ of 5/8” nylon. Both lived on the twin bow rollers that graced the prow of most OI 1s. In addition we had another anchor that none of ever actually used, but one of the partners thought we ought to have in case of heavy weather. I found it cheap, scavenging scrap yards & we found a place low down in her hull where it made good ballast. We also had another 300’ of that 7/16” BBB & some really slick shackles one of the other partners had found that would run right through the windlass like they weren’t even there, so we could reconfigure our ground tackle very easily in 5 or 6 different ways, depending on the conditions. I do believe that that kind of flexibility is a very important quality in a ship’s ground tackle.

Regards.

[JeffH]

That’s 3-strand nylon. I know line is expensive but ...