Dinghy anchoring - important for crusing sailors

by Active Captain on 14 Mar 2015 The issue happens most any time you want to bring your dinghy to the beach. Dragging the dinghy up onto the sand and rocks is damaging. Add a little tide to the landing and it can present tough challenges, if not a situation where your dinghy is floating off while you're walking along the beach.

We used to keep the dinghy at the water's edge with a 50 foot line tied around a rock or a stake in the sand. The result was always watching the dinghy turn sideways and beaching itself, often crashing against the sand over and over until we returned.

Our native Maine friend Larry had the perfect solution - remote anchoring. Here's what you need...

Size the anchor to your particular dinghy. You can also buy packages that combine the anchor with 50 or 100 feet or line. We don't suggest doing that. Instead, get 5 feet of chain (appropriately sized for the anchor) and 10 feet of anchor rode - 3/8 or 1/2 inch depending on the anchor size again. You now have a preset anchor for 5:1 scope in 3 feet of water - perfect for beach settings.

You'll also need about 100 feet of 1/4 inch line. We wrap ours around a spool to stop it from getting all tangled up.

The anchor rode is attached to the bow of the dinghy, hopefully at an eye in the bow if one exists. The 1/4 inch line is attached to the bottom of the anchor and acts like a trip line.

The idea is to land your dinghy at the beach, set up the anchor on the bow, push the dinghy back into three feet of water, and use the trip line to remotely deploy the anchor. Then tie the trip line onto the beach and use it to retrieve the anchor when you're ready to leave.

This is all much easier to show than explain so here are two videos showing it all. First, deploying the anchor:



And then retrieving the dinghy:



Obviously, conditions determine whether this is the right thing for your landing. We've used this dozens of times over the last four years with wonderful success. It solves all the problems we used to have. It's also a good idea to be able to extend the rode length in case you need an emergency anchor in the dinghy - we see far too few dinghies with anchors. Every dinghy should have an anchor for safety reasons.