Carzy Anchor Idea

[muskyfins]

Well, we've come to the time of year when all I can do is daydream about getting the boat out of storage and on the water. (which by the way is still hard right now) Sometimes my mind wanders and start thinking of all the things I want to get accomplished. And a few minutes of ADD later, I usually come up with some crazy idea/better mouse trap sort of thing.:decision:

Today is no different. I have a cruiser boat with no hatch on the anchor locker.(the anchor hangs from a davit on the pulpit) There is a small hole with a fitting to feed line into. Hole is too small for chain rode. It's a huge hassle to have another person set the anchor and retrieve it. The admiral is pretty good, but I've been thinking about a windlass. Then I looked at the price of a windlass and that went out the window.

How crazy is it to consider a power winch type windlass? I could mount it directly in front of the davit. The one pictured below has a 100 pound line pull. That should be sufficient as we are generally in less that 10 feet of water when anchored with a mud/weed bottom. If the anchor is really set tough, I could always manually break her free, but setting has been simplified. The cost is about 1/4 of a regular windlass.

I might have just talked myself into it.

 

[alldodge]

Only issue I see is your 26 foot Rinker will put more then 100 pounds of pull on the line in many cases. If you tie the line off to a cleat it could snap the small 1/4 inch line. Now if you can remove the small line and add a larger 3/8 double braid line, maybe 75 feet (anchoring in 10 foot water) and tie it off, that could work, maybe

 

[muskyfins]

I was a bit concerned about this in windy conditions. The trac products website says the line used has a 600 pound breaking strength. There are also instructions to replace the line. Which I would do immediately. In nearly any case, I doubt I'd be beyond a 4:1 scope. Sounds low I suppose, but i'm talking from experience on an inland body of water with mostly coves and such. Occasionally there can be some wind. Plus in many cases we'd be anchored in closer to 5 feet of water. One of the lakes in the chain we boat has a max depth of 6-8 feet.

 

[Scott Danforth]

My boat originally has a small deck hoss for a rope to the anchor rope locker. First thing I did was pur a real deck hoss to be able to pass a chain.

 

[smokeonthewater]

maybe you need to learn creative shopping..... get busy, er well I mean get BUSY on craig's list and ebay... you should be able to pick up a used windlass for under $200... I paid $175 for my lewmar concept 0