The way a Sarca is designed the attach point shackle is fitted to a slot that would change the leverage position on the anchor (to a position right the way forward up to the plough end) when the chain is gathered in, or by retrieving chain until right on top of the anchor. The boat is then driven forwards to place lifting force at the plough end and dislodge it from the bottom. This is all well and good until you break a shackle or, in our instance we have no idea why the anchor became detatched from the shackle/chain (the shackle was checked by both of us before we launched the boat at Little Beach that morning and was quite firmly tight) but after this we started using a seperate trip line.
Now I'll say at the outset that what we do may not suit your set-up or you may think is a complete overkill but hey, it works for us!
It is a bona fide PITA to manage in a good sea but made easier as we had both a capstan winch (for the main anchor chain/12mm rope duties) as well as a second compartment in the bow large enough to house a 75M (we figured we wouldn't be trying to anchor in much deeper water anyway) of 10mm silver rope and a small orange mooring bouy. We've got our own way of dropping the anchor - it starts with the helm communicating the depth in feet to the sucker (usually me) dropping the anchor at his direction. Our main rope is graduated with different coloured thread every ten feet, so I always know how much is out. The anchor goes over the bow sprit but the trip rope goes through one of the side fairleads at the same time. When the anchor rope goes slack (we have around 10M of chain on the anchor) I pull about 10-15 feet of rope back (I don't pull it all the way back as it would both break contact with the bottom and by doing it this way we have a built-in allowance in it for rising tide) and attach the bouy using a carabina through a quick doubled loop in the trip rope. This serves to hold the rope vertical but there is a down side to this as you'll see in a sec....
Both lines are let out and the anchor is then set with the right amount of scope to suit the conditions. You'll gather by now that the bitter end of the trip rope is not attached to anything but in fact lays out on the surface if you have bought a floating rope. The danger here is that all it takes is another less observant type to drive their boat in between you and your anchor bouy (which has happened to us once when we were first trying this way) and I have no idea how they didn't foul our trip line but they didn't!
I wouldn't suggest this way unless it is very foul ground you're trying to anchor over and you are not expecting too much company to join you in close proximity.
Retrieving the anchor is easy enough as it will bring you directly over your trip line as you do so. A lot of stuffing around (too much to do it single handed really) the way we anchor but we only ever fish together on that boat so it works for us as we've been boating waaaayyy too many years now....
I can see what you're trying to achieve and don't mind the way you've got your tie straps set up (I'd probably use a strong sacrificial wire tie though instead of the plastic tie straps) as ultimately you're still firmly and mechanically attached to your anchor at all times. I might suggest that if you were to keep using the tie straps then you would benefit from reducing to a very low value the amount of shock loading going on the chain from the boat at anchor (boat moving about with wave/wind action jerking on the anchor line). Half a dozen plumbers 6 inch clay pipe o-rings looped together should act as a good bungy. The horizontal pull on the chain wouldn't disturb the lay of the chain on the bottom and not put any force sideways on the tie straps so you will still keep horizontal tension on the chain/anchor while in use. A lot of force can be on an anchor when it is firmly embeded in the sea floor, those tie straps might not quite be strong enough for the windage of your cat (my opinion only...).
Dave.
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Originally Posted by FisHard
Everything takes more time than you'd think
