Anchor Rode Marking

       Why mark the anchor rode?  Easy -- sooner or later you will wonder how much line is out.

         In my opinion, marking the rode is not hard nor costly.  Suppliers sell tags, with footage numbers, some people use cable ties or bits of yarn.

        Some exuberant skippers, mark every twenty five feet and use day-glo colors.

        Years of anchoring in the San Juans has honed my system, or should I say reduced it to what works for me.

It seems to me that we don't need this conversation.  Anchoring and tying to a float are fundamental and crucial to successful cruising and boating in general.  And yet when I look back at the problems I have endured, I see that  anchoring and dealing with docks seem to be at the head of the list of self-inflicted issues.  So this is advice and observations for me.

     Below are some of my obvious observations and methods employed.

• Anchoring, like coming in to the dock or slip must be done fairly quickly or the boat floats away.  This means doing math calculations or untangling snarly rode should be completed beforehand.
• Under water, red, black,and dark colors look the same, light colors just disappear.
• Trying to spot, cutesy paint marks, little tags or bits of string flying out of the hawse pipe is problematic, especially for newbie crew.
• Guesstimating how much rode has been let out is not accurate, but is never the less the system I used for years.
• I tried using a code, such as two marks, three marks, four marks to designate small increments. It was confusing, hard to keep track of, and kinda pointless anyway since I forgot the code.
• Anchoring in dark or windy conditions, or stiff current, quickly identifies inadequate systems, poor planning, and lack of preparation. Not surprisingly the same holds true when coming in to the dock.

     What I do today:

• My experience has been that all paints I have tried last only one season in salt water. Now I  use whatever left over black or red latex paint I have. I apply it on a three to four foot section so it is impossible to miss.
• My first mark is at fifty feet, then one hundred, then one fifty, etc. Since I usually anchor in 15 - 20 feet the third mark never sees water and stays in good shape.
• If I suspect problems or crucial timing issues, I will pull all the needed rode out of the locker and cleanly flake it on deck beforehand.
• When I up anchor, if conditions permit, I flake the rode on deck for cleaning and drying and then carefully drop it in the locker later. Sometimes I put my thirty feet of wet or muddy chain in a milk crate and leave it in the sun.  Putting away wet gear tends to stink, so I avoid it when  I can, especially if I plan to anchor again that day.
• I have a pair of dedicated gloves I use for anchor handling.

How well I anchor is proportional to how well I sleep!

Click below for Blind Bay satellite view

How many Anchors do you need for cruising in the San Juan Islands when Visiting the Marine Parks

One anchor!
Two!
More?
      The quick and easy answer is, "you need the same amount anywhere you go"
No help so far, Okay lets talk a scenario that could be any of us.

You arrive at your first nights anchorage, a quiet little protected bay with a rocky bottom.
What a great vacation, hot dogs over a campfire onshore, some wine or beer, a really restful nights sleep, rich coffee in the morning, and then when you try to raise the anchor your hooked to the biggest rock in the world. after hours of pulling from all directions you finally give up and cut the line, ouch, 250 bucks worth of anchor and rode, gone.  Oh well, your not going to let a lost anchor spoil a perfect vacation and off you go to the next idyllic spot in the San Juan's.

Now it really hits home, the dock is full, no one offers to or wants to raft your boat.  So you think, that's okay, I'll just go ashore in  the dinghy find an anchor shaped rock, bring it back to the mother ship, and tie it to whats left of the cut rode. Except the rode is too short, and you need to stay on board to keep circling in the boat because no one in your crew (wife and children) is qualified to run the boat while your rock hunting.  So your current ex-spouse rows to shore, and .... see where this is going?

What should happen is you break out a spare anchor and rode that's stored and ready to deploy once you tie off the bitter end.  Your admiring first spouse and children think you're a hero.

OK, dinghy scenario.  Your youngest children that have just mastered rowing are off somewhere nearby while you snooze or read a book.  Little do you know but they just lost both oars and the wind is quickly
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