No to a TI anchor trolley?

Looking through the forum it appears that the general consensus is that the anchor trolley on a TI leads to too much clutter. That appears to be the only negative that I can find.

I want to use my TI for sailing, bait fishing, diving platform etc and want to anchor from my bow, while I sail from the rear seat. The anchor trolley seems ideal. I use one on my Revo all the time. So apart from too much clutter, what do forum members feel are the negatives to installing an anchor trolley on the TI? I'm just having one last think before installing the YakAttack HD on the TI.

Thanks,
John

I would have to guess that 90% of the TI users don't use their anchors very often, and it's not a big deal to store the anchor in the front hatch, with the anchor line in a bag, the trolly makes handling the anchor setup a little easier. I suspect the trolly is geared more for fishermen. We don't fish a lot but as divers mostly in the keys we tend to use our anchor a lot. When diving you need a little better anchor typically (especially with sandy bottoms). We have a guardian G4 anchor that seems to hold well in the typical sandy bottoms. We however don't use a trolley.
FE

Thanks FE.

It still looks then that apart from too much clutter and simply no reason for most to have one, there may not be any negatives. For me there are mainly positives. I enjoy kicking back and bait fishing. For pure sailing fun we tend to go off island hopping, camping on beaches with a group of TI's and even some sea kayaks included. When I'm out by myself I sail a bit, anchor, throw out a line, jump over the side and generally goof around.

Cheers,
John

Yea in our case it's really hot and sunny in south florida, our goal is always to get to our destination as quickly as possible and get the heck out of the boat and into the water, one cool thing about key west is you can drop anchor almost anywhere, jump off the boat and snorkle ( which is typically what we end up doing). When up in sarasota we typically meet powerboat friends at sandbars, and hang out in waist deep water. Part of the problem here is the area is so huge all the fun places can be ten miles away which are not fun to get to in the typical very light winds, (kinda why we have motors, and big sail rigging). Basically the boat is tuned to the area, (normal is very light winds around 5mph).
FE

Here in the Gulf of Thailand we have islands and structure scattered all over. From my house (after dragging the TI 20m to the water - and it is a beast to move on land) I only have to sail about 7km either east or west and I have 4 islands and a lot of structure. 1 of the islands has buoys to which I can tie off, but the others I either beach the TI or anchor off.

I'm definitely leaning towards installing the anchor trolley.

Thanks again for your input FE.
Cheers,
John

Let us know how it goes. Our bay that i sail in is very shallow 10-15 foot at the deepest but i would say 75% is less than 6 foot. So a standard stakeout pool works great for us.



I would beach it too but we tend to land in rocky areas (less people).




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I keep my anchor in a rigging bag on the rear deck and always anchor from the rear tying off to a carabiner on the rear cleat. I anchor almost every time I go out.
I didn't see a compelling reason to anchor from the bow but I don't fish and perhaps there is a reason for fishermen.. I'll probably start tying off to the new outboard mount I just installed since it's closer to the rear seat and well secured to the hull.

Chris

Defy, my sailing area is also relatively shallow but still too deep for a stakeout pole. For bait fishing I'm normally anchoring in about 3m to 4m of water (10ft to 15ft). For beautiful, quiet water near the beach as in your photo I can see the stakeout pole looks perfect.



Chris, I am currently doing very similar to you. I keep my anchor in a bag on the rear deck and run it through a shackle on a rear cleat, then tie it off to a pad eye near my seat for quick release. I still want the option of anchoring from the stern, but I prefer anchoring from the bow.

Thanks for the responses,
Cheers
John

There are a variety of good anchoring systems to choose from and which you choose will depend on your specific purpose in mind (e.g., fishing, diving, or overnight). We anchor overnight regularly off the various Channel Islands (Santa Cruz, Anacapa, Santa Rosa, and Santa Catalina). We use a two anchor system. One is a Fortress Guardian G-7 Anchor and the other is a SeaSense Anchor #13 Slip Ring. The Fortress has 12 feet of chain on it while the SeaSense Anchor has 6 feet of chain. Each anchor has a Scotty Anchor Pulley and a corresponding hand spool for rapid retrieval with 200-300 feet of rode. We avoid beaching the boat for many reasons and dinghy in on a small 50 lb inflatable. We do not have the luxury of not worrying about our boat floating off when we are 30-40 miles from the mainland on the backside of the various islands. When we do not want to bring a dinghy, we use a haul-out pulley system (similar to anchor buddy but for rougher saltwater conditions outside of bays) that allows us to pull the boat up outside the surf and unload onto the beach (and then haul it back out to where the anchor is from the beach). None of these systems are small or compact and each requires significant understanding of how anchoring systems work (e.g., is your anchor set well enough, do you have enough scope out, what are the prevailing conditions and how will they change).

I do like both your systems and did consider the Scotty, but for my applications it seemed like it would get in my way. It would of course alleviate any need for an anchor trolley. I considered the anchor trolley to be less "clutter" than the Scotty.

I had to Google the Anchor Buddy. Again, in my situation with warm water, shallow, not too rough it is easier to anchor off and wade ashore or beach it. Doing it this way I only need 1 anchor. I can run a stern anchor and tie off my bow rope to the shore.

I'm mainly looking at the anchor trolley in situations where I like to kick back, do a little bait fishing, and listen to some quiet tunes. In this case I like to anchor from the bow and I sail from the rear.

Thanks for your post. I enjoy getting different perspectives and this forum is a continual source of knowledge.

Cheers,
John

For a while we had an automatic anchor system that was a 3ft long 3/4 sq aluminum rod that was mounted to a swivel on a small aluminum plate that was lashed down to the rear deck with spectra string. It worked really well, when you pulled the anchor in it would swing up over the rudder (out of the way of everything). When deploying the anchor you just released the anchor line and the anchor dropped automatically over the stern. We sometimes need to anchor in fairly deep water (diving offshore) so I have about 150' of 3/8" nylon anchor line on board. I eventually cut it down to 100', then store the extra in a bag in the bow, (have never needed it). That much anchor line is a lot of line and when pulled in and laying on deck it fills up the passenger compartment completely and tangles and catches on pretty much anything and everything (a royal PIA). To help manage lines better, I added a spool to my pvc motor mount (similar to a paper towel dispenser. Mine is mounted horizontally but could just as easily be mounted vertically on a wire spool ( a vertical spool would probably be more convenient, (I'll make one someday, (with a. Crank arm at the top))). The 3/8" nylon anchor line might be overkill, 1/4" quality line (similar to the sail control line rope) would likely work just as well. What I really like about my system is it is perminantly mounted on the boat and never removed (even in storage in the garage). I simply connect the bungy (the one that came with the boat to hold the rudder down on the older models TI's, so the anchor doesn't swing around on the highway). I have a guardian G4 aluminum anchor (around 3.5 lbs). I have no chain rode of any kind on the anchor. Everything works fine except if you try to drop anchor with the boat moving fast , ( the anchor water skiis behind the boat). Someday I will tie a 2-3lb weight belt weight to the anchor where the rope attaches to help weigh the anchor down. I have no plans to ever add a chain rode, feeling a chain rode would chop the heck out of my plastic boat, and would make my anchor deployment system totally useless. Withot a chain rode or weight on the anchor I do need to anchor at a shallower scope angle, I have enough anchor line to do that. Whenever we are diving the first thing we ever do is follow the anchor line down to the bottom, and check the anchor. When coming back up we normally follow the anchor line back up, and do all of our safety stops while hanging onto the anchor lines. The currents off Key west are very strong typically so we need something to hang onto. We also have a stringer float line off of the boat typically to assist getting back to the boat.
I have no means to post pics anymore, (not willing to pay photobucket $400/yr), so all my old picks are gone forever.

I'm not envisioning anyone doing my same setup, most don't use their anchors all that often. We also carry a second grappling anchor, but seldom use it.
FE

Thanks FE,

Your posts always get me thinking, even if I don't want exactly like you're saying it always opens up other possibilities and with the TI, those possibilities seem endless.

If you're looking for a free photo hosting and sharing site, Imgur is free and appears to work. I have just used it to post some pics on my last trip.

Cheers,
John