I have been having difficulty finding a replacement anchor that fits in my anchor locker. The holding bottom where I normally sail is sandy to sand/silt. My old anchor was a Danforth style and worked great. All of the anchors I can find locally are too wide. am I going to have to have one cut-down and re-galvanized. I know just paint wouldn't last very long in salt water.
Any ideas or sources?
Terry,
I don't know if you're going to be too receptive to this idea. I wish that I had an anchor locker on my 222, but they didn't design my boat with one. Had they done so though, I think that I would just use it for storing my anchor line instead of using a cut-down milk crate with rope handles. Years ago I used to have an anchor holding bracket on my bow pulpit and it was OK at the time, but still a pain when it came to raising and lowering the anchor. Then I bought an anchor roller and installed it on my bow. This was the best move that I ever made. What I did also, was install a Herreshoff cleat directly in line with the roller bracket for cleating off the anchor line. I mounted the roller bracket on an angle so that it could miss the bow plate, and the bow pulpit rail. The angle of this bracket worked out great for those rare times when my boat was very close obstacles, and I needed to be able to raise the anchor from the cockpit while operating my outboard. For instance, I may have anchored near an island in the bay at night, and in the morning when I woke up I found that the wind had changed and the tide went down, causing my boat to be a little too close to shore. I use two large snatch blocks on the bottom of my stanchion rails to run the anchor line through, and this works out great for me. Also, my friend Walter had given me his Fortress FX 11 Aluminum anchor when he sold his Chris Craft 24, and this anchor not only holds great, but it is light and easy to handle. So if you do a lot of anchoring as I do, an anchor roller is a must, and all you have to do is pull on the line to get it up. You never really have to man handle the anchor. The anchor chain needs to be able to slip through the bracket, so you would need to use connectors that are narrow enough to fit. I use a swivel on both of my anchor chains. Here's some pics of my set-up. Check it out.
