Roger,

If you wake up dragging, it is likely you will need to quickly redeploy. That's not easily and safely done in the dark with your anchor tackle complications.  And any "optimizing" that ignores emergencies just leads to a short life--and a lot of yelling.

I am not suggesting an all chain rode.  I am saying you need a 20' chain between anchor and rope rode, as you have.  The rope should be no less than 7 times longer than the water depth.  If you can't find a spot that has enough room, go to shore or to another anchorage.  Good seamanship is not squeezing in.

One of the few faults with the R22 is that the chain plates cannot be visually inspected.  Some on this list have opened inspection holes in the cabin inside walls to make inspection possible.  The lower stays did their backup job fine, however, reattaching the plate and repairing the hull was expensive.

I ran out of gas trying to beat a storm that was not predicted.  The lesson learned was to always carry a full reserve tank on the open lake.

Regards,

Rick Lange

On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 1:29 PM ROGER PIHLAJA <roger_pihlaja at msn.com> wrote:

> Rick,
>
> For those of us that actually stay overnight at anchor, there are two
> major issues we worry about:
> 1: Is my anchor going to drag?
> 2: If the wind or current shifts, is my swing circle going to interfere
> with the boats anchored around me?
>
> With a given anchor type and anchor rode configuration, the best way to
> reduce the chance of dragging anchor is to increase the scope ratio.  With
> a small boat, like a Rhodes 22, an all chain anchor rode is simply too
> heavy to be a practical option.  I use a boat length of chain connected to
> 150 ft of 3/8 inch diameter three strand nylon rode.
>
> The best way to assure your swing circle isn’t going to interfere with
> other boats is to make your swing radius as small as possible, with an
> acceptable scope ratio.  Why would I want to make my swing radius bigger?
> The reality of small sailboat cruising is that we tend to arrive at an
> anchorage late in the day.  By this time, the power boats have already
> dropped their hooks for the evening.  We often have to find a place among
> the boats that are already in place and the newcomer always has to yield
> right of way.  Having a small swing radius lets us squeeze in where most
> boats could not.
>
> My suggested anchoring technique enables one or the other of these issues
> to be optimized.  All other anchoring scenarios put together make up a very
> small % of the total use of your anchor.  I’m glad you were able to keep
> your boat off the rocks by emergency anchoring.  But, this scenario has
> very little to do with normal cruising.  Good seamanship would dictate that
> you inspect your rigging and pay attention to your fuel level so you don’t
> have to emergency anchor.  But, those are entirely separate issues.
>
> Roger Pihlaja
> S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>