Anchoring overnight?
 

Hey everyone,

It is getting much nicer around Texas lately and I'm thinking I may want to do an overnight camping out in a cove. Lake Travis is a rocky bottom and even when watching it during the day, boats have a tendency to pop loose. So naturally an overnight causes me some alarm.

So what's your guys' methods to ensuring a good safe night of anchoring?

Currently my plan is to add a good amount of chain to the anchor on this new boat and make sure to let out a much longer rode than usual. Am I missing anything else?

Thanks!

Get a box anchor from slideanchor.com and be done... My experience with the box anchor excellent. Once set, it is set until you get right on top of it.....

I saw this app recently: DragQueen Anchor Alarm
I don't know how well it'll work but I welcome anything that might help me sleep a little better on the hook. Little else beats watching the sun go down with no place to be.

we anchor off of catalina island alot. very deep and step. make sure you use an anchor rated for your size of boat, use good chain at least the length of your boat, once the anchor is set, drop a smaller anchor off the stern just to stop spinning or tie off to the shore.this only will work though if your the only boat. if there is others and they arnt tied off from the rear, youll need to move with the other boats.

I just spent 4 nights on our boat (24') and two on the hook. Feed out a ton of line w/a fair amount of chain on it to be safe. I use 10'.
If you have decent a GPS on your boat it will have an anchor alarm if you drift beyond a certain distance from where you set the alarm. Mine is 164'. (164' sounds like a lot but lets you pivot around the anchor w/wind shifts w/o sounding an alarm)
I just bought two new Fortress aluminum anchors for my boat. I was hesitant based on how light they are and not being sure they wouldn't drag based on this but the tests said other wise.
I bought a small, easier to handle anchor during day, light conditions and as a 2nd off the transom and heavier as a main.
We had very strong wind the first day/night and I tried the small one as an experiment and it failed.
I kept feeding out line and re-setting the alarm until I hit max length (I think 50' + 10' chain) and it would not hold us in approx. 9' of water.
Switched to heavier anchor w/100' line + 10' chain (and wind died!) and never moved.
For over night on the hook, the key for me is to get it set in day light. Feed out what you feel is proper then go on the bow and see if you can pull it loose.
Works for me. BTW, I've done probably 50 nights on the hook in everything from perfect conditions to waking up in howling winds and 3' waves forcing us to move.

I agree with everything above. Large enough anchor, the more chain the better, and lots of rode. If you do have an anchor alarm on your GPS that is the best thing. If you can, throw two anchors out around 50 feet apart from each other, one on each side of the wind heading, even better. I know a lot of private yacht captains that have spent thousands of nights on the hook, even with all the above done, everyone of them is still awake every 2 hours to check on everything. I would rather have a bad nights sleep checking everything every couple hours then a great night sleep and wake up on the rocks.

X2

A "big box off the front

One off the back.

Scope is HALF what a v or danforth needs and youre locked.


Uncle Dave

True dat.
 

I have a new anchor light that pulls way too many amps and kept killing the battery while in the Keys last week.
I could see from the V-berth, through the bow hatch when it went out. I'd get up to fire off motors and charge batteries.
Was counting the hrs until day break hoping to be done with it when it shut off the last time. Had another hr of darkness and knowing we were close to a busy ramp and harbor I knew.
As I was getting up for the 2nd or 3rd time I heard a fish boat fire up somewhere very close (in the dark) and haul ass past our boat!
A lower wattage bulb is on the to do list.

Switch over to an LED anchor light. Bright and pulls less power.

Yep.
 

Great idea. This light was a combination of three that I grafted together to get what I wanted. I'll just swap out the head.
Thanks for reminding me of that. Funny too, I thought of that while looking at the ones on the two sail boats beside me that were clearly LED's.

Chain is a good friend as much as you can get out, it limits the pull energy on the anchor.

I would consider a second anchor at 15-20 degrees differed from your first one.

If your sleeping on the boat (you mention camping so I don't know if your just anchoring and sleeping on shore) on some GPS, I know I have this feature on my Azimut, you can set a radius alarm say 75-100 feet from a point and the alarm goes off if you swing out of the circle.

I always sleep lightly at anchor anyway so anything that changes usually wakes you up like change in wave noise on the hull and such.

It's a blast, hope this helps and you have fun!

If on the river, 90 % of the time I anchor the bow facing out and tie the ass end to the bank. This always for easy acces to ladder and swim platform in about waste deep water.... and the boat will take any waves head on that way.

If no bank, use anchor alarm, and drift around.

I have 100 foot rope, 15 foot chain, and a big dan forth anchor.

this was a small raft up and everyone was just tied up, I was the only anchored boat. in a bout 3 mph current. there were a few more ski boats on the right out of the picture.
http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._7690647_n.jpg

right anchor for the job I actually like to use two. and lights

Anchor alarm sounds intriguing. I'll have to see if my GPS has one. Make sure you anchor where some idiot won't run you over. Your lights will blend into the shoreline.

My Garmin has a feature called Anchor drag which you set the amount of movement (drag) that you want it to allow before it sounds.

My lorance, has it, i set it to 100 foot. and then dim the screen. works like a charm.

But an app that does it is pretty cool too, will look into that.

A lot of good information here! I really like the idea of an anchor alarm. I had not heard of that before.

One of my friends from the board has a box anchor and absolutely loves it. My hesitation is that it is not uncommon to get snagged on a stump or something in the bottom of Lake Travis and be unable to pull the anchor back up. I get mad enough losing a normal anchor, I'd really get upset losing an expensive box anchor.

Then again you wouldn't drift anywhere during the night!

Then again you wouldn't drift anywhere during the night!