Anchors

Ever since we first went to Scilly in 2009 we have anchored in Green Bay and being a drying anchorage the anchors are visible at low water, l have always been interested in how well they worked or didn’t in some cases.

But it was the summer of 2013 which really made me think of which anchor would be better to buy. We had sailed to Scilly on the Saturday and after arriving there was a forecast of gale set for Wednesday. Most yachts left for the mainland before then but we had only just arrived and didn’t want to leave, so we stayed! During the low water before the gale was due, skippers were digging their anchors in (digging a hole with spades, placing the anchor in the hole and filling the holes back in). We had a Danforth anchor for our Hurley 22, Danforth didn’t have very good write ups in the yachting press but we hadn’t ever had a problem.

The gale arrived at the end of the day, south veering west just as the tide floats all the yachts. We were very close to another yacht so we moved and found a space before dropping anchor again, the anchor set in its own length and held throughout the gale overnight. In the morning is was easy to see which anchors worked and which didn’t. The 3 yachts which dragged all had CQR anchors, but thankfully they didn’t collide with any other yachts! The Bruce anchors had gone in really deep into the bottom. The Delta anchors seemed to work well, one yacht even had a big fishing man’s anchor which seemed to work well.

The wind stayed up around force 6 for the next 3 days, then for Sunday came another forecast of a southeast veering southwest gale. Our Hurley 22 was a fin keeler which we fitted beach legs to, to dry out. But southeast blows straight into Green Bay and legs aren’t good in any swell. So we moved and picked up a swing mooring in New Grimsby. That was a night l don’t ever want to repeat, during wind against tide the mooring buoy was trying to break though the bow, good job H22s were over engineered (very thick GRP). The CG met office forecast had given northeast force 7 for Monday but when we awoke the wind was gone and it was flat calm. That was the first time we came back via Newlyn over 2 days. Later that season l bought my first smartphone because met office couldn’t be trusted to give a correct forecast.

When we bought Elektra, she had a CQR anchor, l took one look at it and chucked it in the boat yard skip! I bought a slightly under sized 7.5kg genuine Bruce anchor which we used for 7 season, we anchored 240 nights, it dragged 4 times. I have replaced this season with a 10kg Rocna which l am still uncertain about at this time, although it did dig in well during the last 24hrs of strong winds.

I walked around the anchorage today at low water, 11 years later 80% of yachts now have Rocna anchors, some still using Bruce anchors. And some still have CQRs but have problems and don’t realise that there are better anchors available.