PART SEVEN: ANCHORING SYSTEMS
Anchor Size and Designation
Most boats (as we’ll see shortly) should carry
two or more anchors. Common modern ter-
minology for the primary anchor that is used
most of the time is the working anchor.The
heavy anchor used for anchoring in severe
weather is the storm anchor,while the light
anchor used for short-term anchoring is the
lunch hook.The lunch hook is usually the an-
chor carried off to either keep the boat away
from something (e.g., shore, dock, or another
boat) or to pull a boat off when it has run
aground. This is kedging off, and the lunch
hook is also properly the kedge anchor,
though people commonly misuse this term to
mean a fisherman or yachtsman anchor type.
More traditional terms for the different
anchors are as follows: Bower anchorsare
the standard working anchors, with the “bestbower” being the heaviest standard working
anchor. The light lunch hook was termed the
stream anchor,and the storm anchor is the
street anchor—the heaviest anchor aboard. In
the days of wooden, square-rigged sail, the
street anchor (also called the sheet anchor)
was stored ready for instant use, and the term
sheet anchorbecame a synonym for safety;
something that was your sheet anchor was
your security. (The word bower, by the way,
originally came from bow,meaning nothing
more than an anchor carried at the bow.)
When an anchor is hanging free on the
chain over the bow (ready to drop or to bring
up and cat home for storage), it was said to
becockabill.Today, when the anchor chain
is straight up and down, with the anchor on
the bottom and ready to break out, we simply
call out “straight up and down,” but this is
properly termed apeak.Anchor Selection Recommendations
Having reviewed the assortment of anchors
commonly available, the question becomes
which type to specify for a particular boat.
Table 22-7 is based on the breakdown of boat
sizes with which this chapter began.TABLE 22-7. RECOMMENDED ANCHORS FOR INSHORE AND CRUISING BOATS OF VARIOUS SIZES
1st Working 2nd Working Lunch Hook Storm or
Boat Size Type or 1st Bower or 2nd Bower or Stream Street
Small Boat Inshore, Fortress or na na na
under 25 ft. Lightweight Guardian,
(7.6 m) folding grapnel
for dinghy
Heavy, Cruising Fortress or (optional) Delta, na (optional) Luke
Guardian plow, spade stowed in bilge
Medium Boat Inshore, Fortress or Delta or spade (optional) (optional) Luke
25 to 50 ft. Lightweight Guardian Fortress stowed in bilge
(7.6 to 15.2 m) or Guardian
Heavy, Cruising Delta, spade, Delta, spade, Fortress or Luke or very large
plow, claw plow, claw Guardian Fortress stowed in
(different from bilge
1st bower)
Heavy, Cruising Danforth hi- Danforth hi- Fortress or Luke or very large
with hawsepipe tensile, large tensile, large Guardian Fortress stowed in
anchor stowage bilge
Figure 22-23.
Bulwagga anchor
(Courtesy
Bulwagga Marine
Anchors)
(Continued )