Ocean Anchor-buoy - New Product

by Nancy Knudsen on 17 May 2006 In crowded anchorages, an anchor buoy is a great way of stopping other boats from anchoring right over yours. Sundowner drinks are always peppered with stories of ‘that great idiot that anchored right over the top of me’. Worse, in a high wind, if he drags, he will drag you with him, and tangled anchors in that situation just takes all the fun out of sailing!
However, anchor buoys come with a few challenges:

· One extra task to worry about if you need to get your anchor up quickly
· The issue of varying depths. If the line is a little short it can put the anchor-buoy under water, or if too long it can float away giving an erroneous impression about where the anchor is,
· The necessity to be very careful when getting the anchor up so as not to foul the propeller, especially if there is spare floating Ocean Fenders have solved one and maybe two of these problems, by introducing an ‘Ocean Anchor-buoy’ which finds its own depth. This means that the buoy always shows an accurate position, and there is no spare line, making it more difficult to foul.

To moor with the Anchor-buoy, this is how you go about it – follow the steps by the diagram:

1. Fix the buoy riding rope to the anchor crown with a loop, the first time.
2. Prepare the anchor-buoy by reomoving the lead counterweight from its housing and clear the buoy rope.
3. When the anchor is being deployed, throw the anchor-buoy, buoy rope and counterweight into the water
4. The buoy rope will adjust automatically, thanks to the counterweight, at depths of 4-8 metres – for shallower water see below.
Depths of 2-4 metres, reduce by 4 metres
Depths of 1-2 metres, reduce by 6 metres
For depths of 10metres, move the knot to the end of the buoy rope, and replace with a longer one.

How to weigh anchor with the anchor-buoy:

1. With the engine running mover slowly towards the anchor-buoy and wind in the anchor rode as usual
2. When close to the anchor-buoy, place the engine IN NEUTRAL and, taking advantage of the headway, recover the anchor.
3. Detach the buoy rope, counterweight and anchor-buoy from the anchor crown.
4. Coil the buoy rope, place the counterweight in its housing and stow everything in the anchor peak, ready for the next mooring
5. There is no need to remove the loop from the anchor crown.

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