I'm hearing you guys..
I'll find something heavier/more aggressive anchor wise and I have plenty of heavy chain around the shop to put something together for heavy weather mooring..
Then I'll have two rigs on board, use the lighter one where I can and heavier when I need..
You will never regret it
. Since you have some chain, spend that money and get one of these...
http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|10391|33872|902122&id=901916
.... and you will have a really nice anchor to start with like Danny said. In Florida the last couple times we were using the claw and leaving the Manson on the bow roller for the 'bad blow', then I thought why are we not using the better anchor all the time and the claw in addition when we wanted 2 anchors down. So we started using the Manson all the time with the claw when we did want two anchors down.
If you get a better anchor, and it sounds like you are, put it down at night and use the other one for lunch or whatever.
The same with the scope, I'm with Ross, if you have the room to swing why try and see how little scope you can get by with? To us anchoring out can be real addictive. We love it.
I will say that we did something real dumb on our first trip. We had never had the boat in the water or even seen it in the water. So we go over to Colorado in late spring when the lake is all snow melt, colder than hell and the nights are below freezing. We put the boat in the water and can't get the outboard to fire. No problem, put it in the unlocked pickup and put the 5 HP dinghy outboard on. We put in and there is absolutely no one on the lake. By now it is late and we had never even been on a sailboat before.
We motor down into a little bend in the lake and put the little Danforth down that came with the boat. Of course I had read some and new enough to put out some scope, but we just threw the anchor over the side and I let out line and cleated it off. We are still motoring along about 4-5 knots when we get to the end of the road where I had cleated it off and the boat comes to a sudden halt and swings around. That was 'setting the hook'.
We eat and the temps are headed down into the low 30's. There are no houses or anything on the lake. We turn in and I lay there listening to all of the gurgling sounds you hear only at night. I think what if this boat has a leak and we sink? I can swim, but not very far in 35 degree water and Ruth doesn't swim at all. Of course she goes right to sleep and I finally do also and the rest is history.
Be a little smarter than we were
,
Sum
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