T&T: Anchoring

[Milt Baker]

We have a stout stainless bow eye, sometimes known as a towing eye, backed up by a 
very large stainless steel plate.  It's located about six inches above the waterline, 
and we use it for our snubber which is 25 feet 7/16" black nylon with a stainless 
chain hook spliced into the business end.  In the "at sea" position, both ends of 
the snubber line are on deck.  Once the anchor (with its all-chain rode) is down with 
proper scope, I connect the chain hook to the chain and pay out 12-15 feet of chain 
keeping tension on the snubber line as it's also paid out, then secure the snubber line 
to a deck cleat.  Once the snubber line is secured, I pay out another four feet of 
chain, which provides a bight or "loop" of chain with enough weight to keep tension 
on the chain hook in case there's not enough wind to keep it attached.  I've anchored 
perhaps 600-700 times using this system over the past five years and it's always worked 
well. Occasionally, maybe a half dozen times, the chain hook detaches in light air.

Another way of doing is is to simply attach the snubber line directly to the bow eye, 
run it to the deck with a chain hook on the deck end.  I tried that, but I found the 
inability to keep tension on the snubber while it was being set resulted in the chain 
hook detaching quite often during the set process.  Another disadvantage of this approach 
is that if one has to let out more chain (or let go the anchor) in an emergency, it 
requires bringing in the chain first so the chain hook can be detached.  The my preferred 
method (top paragraph), in an emergency I can simply let go the deck end of the snubber 
line and kiss it goodbye.

Some of you might question using light 7/16" black line.  I chose black because it hides 
the dirt, mud, rust stains and wear and tear and looks better; it also stands up better
to UV damage from sunlight better than light colored line.  I chose 7/16 because it's 
light and springy enough to work well as a snubber, yet strong enough (5,300 lbs. breaking 
strength) to hold in all the conditions I've experienced, including winds gusting to about 
65 knots in a couple of squalls. I've seen other boats using a block on the bow eye, but 
with a polished stainless steel bow eye I think that's unnecessary. My snubber line runs 
straight through the bow eye with no block down there, yet it hasn't chafed badly where it 
passes through the eye, so the system is really quite simple.   

Something I especially like about using the bow eye for the snubber line is that having the 
pull from low down on the bow seems to significantly attenuate sailing (sometimes called 
seeking) at anchor.  I've never had a one-on-one comparison with another boat of the same 
model anchored close by with the pull from the bow instead of at the LWL, but dozens of 
times I've observed similar boats--other Nordhavns--anchored this way and they all seem to 
sail more actively at anchor than we do using the snubber system described above.  

To be sure, I don't claim to have all the answers on this, but my system has worked well 
anchoring in various conditions all along the eastern seaboard, through the eastern Caribbean 
and Venezuela, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and across most of the Mediterranean, so I've given it a 
pretty good test.   Still, I'm eager to learn how others are doing it--it seems there's always 
a better way!

--Milt Baker, Nordhavn 47 Bluewater, Fort Lauderdale

Steve Willett wrote:

There has been a lot of good information on anchoring posted lately, but I  
haven't seen anything about the use of a Bow Eye to reduce the height of 
the  rode snubber attachment point above the water line therefore the amount 
of  rode out to maintain good scope. It would be interested to read some  
opinions and experiences.
In particular if any one has used a large U bolt arrangement with a good  
backing plate inside the bow they
are available of heavy material.