Anchoring/Mooring

John explores a little-known selection criteria that every anchor buyer should know about.

There are so many anchors and so many conflicting claims it’s hard to know what to buy. In this chapter we cut through the fog with clear recommendations of the anchors that work and a warning list of those that we don’t trust.

Not a lot more to say really. Thanks to Glen Applebaum, who took the shot and Drummer Dave who sent it to us.

Colin shares his technique for making sure the anchor is well set.

I have written in the past about our distrust of moorings and how we generally prefer to be on our own anchor when the winds blow hard. However, there is one exception to that rule: our own mooring at our Base Camp. We just had it checked and took some photographs of the process, which [...]

Chafe-Pro provides an off-the-shelf solution for protecting vulnerable lines from chafe.

See this chapter for our latest thinking on snubbers. During our time in the Rias of Galicia we’ve enjoyed many comfortable nights at anchor. But as is the case in any area surrounded by hills we’ve had plenty of wind at times, rolling down off those same hills, or funnelling down the valleys. We had [...]

Question: We’re about to build a shoreline system. We have two reels from Easyroll that can take about 150 m of 12 mm line each. I’ve seen the system used by Polaris, and it looks very solid, but my concern is, obviously, the cost of using Dyneema [Spectra]. As far as I can see the [...]

On 28th December last year a beautiful Saga 40—an English design not to be confused with this boat—was lost when she went ashore at Sint Eustatius in the eastern Caribbean when a mooring provided for yachts by the local marine park, STENAPA, failed in what looks from the photograph to be benign conditions. As might [...]

A few months ago we published a photo essay about Polaris, the custom Hutting 54 especially designed and built for cruising remote places, owned by our friends Michael and Martina. Since then several people have asked about the line reels shown in the photographs. I passed these questions on to Michael and got the following [...]

What does the word “harbour” mean to you? A safe haven, perhaps, sheltered from all sides? Well, in some of the less frequented parts of the world it can mean something quite different. Many “harbours”, such as Hugh Town on St Mary’s in the Isles of Scilly, are far from safe in all conditions, being [...]

When Colin bought his new Ovni 435, he brought 30 years of anchoring experience in difficult conditions to bear on his gear selection decisions and in this chapter he shares that process.

Question: The Jordan Series Drogue website is fascinating and leads to an interesting question. Faced with anchoring/mooring Morgan’s Cloud for a hurricane, would you be inclined to go stern-to? Jordan makes a fairly compelling argument…although I imagine Morgan’s Cloud is relatively stable as compared to the latest cruiser/racer hull forms. Answer: I think Jordan makes [...]

The other day I was idly paging through the posts on a cruising forum about anchoring and marveling at the level of energy and emotion, not to mention the sheer volume of posts, that this subject seems to elicit. I have to say that my first uncharitable thought was “Don’t these people have lives?” But [...]