T&T: Anchor clone

[Faure, Marin]

>The farm plow is restricted from burrowing and is curved to roll the
dirt - not what a plow anchor does.


Having been around farm plows some (the horse-drawn kind) and looking
carefully at anchors like CQRs, the plow anchor is basically two farm
plows welded together upside down.  There are some differences in the
blade/fluke shape of course, but essentially it's the exact same idea
only instead of picking dirt up and rolling it over the "upside down
plow" anchor digs itself down into the dirt (bottom).  But of course the
basic "flaw" is that the whole thing is pointed forward and
"streamlined" to move in a forward direction.  Other than its wedging
action, the plow anchor's only resistance to moving forward is its
tendency to dig deeper in.  This obviously works great most of the time
but if it can't dig itself deeper most of its resistance to forward
motion is gone.  As opposed to an anchor with one or more flukes that
end up broadside to the direction of pull (Danforth, spade, etc.).  The
only way they can move forward is to be levered completely out of the
bottom or be inserted in a material so soft that it simply "bulldozes"
the material ahead of it.  It's been interesting to ask the long-time
sailors I've met why the CQR is so popular with the sailboat crowd, at
least in this area (PNW).  The only answer I've ever gotten is that it
was one of the first anchors to stow well on sailboat's bow roller.

The link to the anchoring article that was posted a few messages back is
worth reading.


______________________________
C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington