TI Anchoring System
As mentioned earlier the key to surviving in rough weather condition or recovering on the beach is a good bow mounted anchoring system. This allows you to anchor in rough weather to wait out the storm or worst case deploying a sea anchor to ride out the storm in deeper water. Also, when recovering the TI on the beach with high surf, I believe deploying a sea anchor off bow and swimming the boat in from a stern line is the best option. All this requires a easily deployed anchor/sea anchor off the bow. After having tried different options I believe that my friend Marc K (mkrawats) has come up with the best solution. The following anchoring system is based on his design with some of my ideals thrown in.
First you will need to tie a loop on the bow pad eye. I used a sheet bend knot.
The follow system assumes that 90% of your anchoring will be in 10 -20 feet of water. Therefore you will need approximately 40 feet of line. We have used 3/16 high quality sailing line with a 1200 lbs of tensile strength. Keeping the size and amount of rope on deck to a minimum is important in keeping thing from becoming a tangled mess. Attach a stainless steal spring snap carabiner on each end of line. Either use a good knot (bowline) or have it spiced on with an eye splice. If you plan on anchoring in deep water one ends need to be eye spiced as will be explained later.
The anchor we chose is the Guardian Fortress G5. it weighs only 2.5 lbs and has incredible holding power in soft bottoms. In order to fit into the forward hatch, 1.5 inches on each side of the stock bar were cut off. Four feet of anchor chain were attached with an anchor shackles on each end. Because I don’t like loose item in the boat I store my anchor in the forward hatch in a Seal Line Baja Bag 20L.
There are different ways to secure the line on the forward cross bar. I clip the back of the line to a rope tied to the forward crossbar on starboard side. It is important to attach this end to the crossbar because it is what will connect the boat to the anchor once all the line is let out.
The front end of the line is then clipped to a pad eye attached to the port side of forward crossbar. This is the end the anchor/sea anchor is clipped to when needed.
Because I am anal retentive and don’t like anything loose on the boat the line is then brought tight and keep tight with a small cleat attached on the right side of the crossbar. This cleat is only used to keep things looking good. It is not used to hold the boat.
The remaining rope is then bundled and secured to crossbar.
A separate retrieval line is required to pull the rope in. I suggest using a different color line and tying it to the line on the port side of the the bow pad eye. Use a knot that will slide on the line and then tie the other end to the crossbar.
A 36 inch bungie cord is used to provide a shock absorber for the anchoring system. The plastic hooks are attached to a alpine butterfly loop tied about 30 inches from the end.
If you plan to fish wrecks and need an additional deep anchoring system then get the additional length of line needed. I use 100 feet of 5/16 anchoring line stored in a separate bag. The line needs to have an eye spice on each end. The 40 feet of line on the boat (mentioned above) needs to have and eye spice of about 2 feet. This is used to easily flip the ropes into a knot combining both ropes into a single rope.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le6HcheoZK0[/youtube]