Anchor Ropes

[johnnyb.]

Can anyone help me on this one?.I read somewhere that your anchor rope meeds to be 5 times the depth of the water you are in.Does that mean if Im reading 30 metres on the sounder I need 150 mts. of anchor rope.I measured mine its about 40 metres plus about 6 mts of chain.

[Maverick Martin]

John

 

If you were anchoring overnight/sleeping on the boat to be sure of your anchor holding you would probably be looking at a scope of 5:1 For our use fishing when you are awake and hopefully alert a scope of 3:1 is the general norm. As long as you have sufficient chain and an adequate anchor the 3:1 ratio will hold in all but the most extreme conditions.

 

I would suggest that your rope/chain length is a little on the short side even for fishing inshore in this area. Inshore I would say 100 metres of rope plus chain would be better. Most of us that go a little further offshore carry a full coil (220 metres) of rope plus chain.

 

Hope that helps

 

Martin

[johnnyb.]

Thanks for the advice Martin looks like another visit to the marine shop.I dont think as you say a whole coil will fit in my anchor place.Think Il get as much in as poss. and save the rest for when I loose it whitch seems to be quite a cmmon occurence.

[duncan]

as Martin suggests there are a few other factors beyond the simple 5x; however when moving away from such 'rules' it's always important to make sure that you have everything considered!

 

some considerations -

 

over about 10m depth you can normally start to come back from a baseline 4x until about 2.5x at 50m.

 

conversely I would want about 8x out in 2m! (and that's not because of tidal range)