Anchor issues

[Glenn LaMay]

New to the forum, glad to be here.
Recently purchased a 2026 R-27 OB.
Typically I go from dock to dock and have never tried to anchor the boat. Till this week in 16ft. Of water and 50' of chain and 100' of line I kept slipping. I was over a sandy bottom with a light wind <10 mph. While boats around me were pointing into the wind, I kept swinging port to starboard. 1/2 hr later my anchor alarm goes off.
My question is, is this typical for this boat?

 

[Mike and Sarah]

Few things. First these boats do swing some but probably swing a lot more white excess rode out. Even if you had 5 to 1 scope that puts you at 80 feet total chain and rode combined. Second is the stock Lewmar anchor is marginal. It should be replaced with a Rocna 10 or similar . Also an anchor bridle will also help the reduce the swing a bit and it keeps the rode from fraying when the boat is swinging.

 

[scross]

Whole bunch of questions.
1. What anchor do you have? Make and weight?
2. How did you set the anchor? Did the boat come to a complete and abrupt stop when backing at 2-3 mph when the anchor set?
3. What were the tidal swings or were you on a lake?
4. If in the PNW was your 16 ft taken at high tide, low tide or in between low and high?
5. What distance was your anchor alarm set for?

 

[it4llc]

One other point on scope - from what I understand you should also factor in the bow height above the water, e.g., if you are in 16' of water, and your bow is also 4' above the water, then 5:1 would be 100' of rode, not 80.

 

[Glenn LaMay]

New to the forum, glad to be here.
Recently purchased a 2026 R-27 OB.
Typically I go from dock to dock and have never tried to anchor the boat. Till this week in 16ft. Of water and 50' of chain and 100' of line I kept slipping. I was over a sandy bottom with a light wind <10 mph. While boats around me were pointing into the wind, I kept swinging port to starboard. 1/2 hr later my anchor alarm goes off.
My question is, is this typical for this boat?

Thanks for the feed back.

I did upgrade the anchor from the stock 16.5 lbs claw that came with the boat to a Lewmar 22 lbs. plow style, thinking it is the wrong style for my area .
As for rode length in the northeast where tides range from 3' to 6' I have been told it depends on how much chain you have. 50' of chain and 50' of line should be plenty @ 5X depth. I always believed these calculations were minimum lengths and more is always better than less.
Now, After reading your comments my original question was" Is this typical with these boats"? It appears it is, many have commented about replacing the stock anchor. Maybe because I'm new here but, this should a Ranger Tug's problem to replace.
I would love to hear more comments regarding this.

 

[Glenn LaMay]

Whole bunch of questions.
1. What anchor do you have? Make and weight?
2. How did you set the anchor? Did the boat come to a complete and abrupt stop when backing at 2-3 mph when the anchor set?
3. What were the tidal swings or were you on a lake?
4. If in the PNW was your 16 ft taken at high tide, low tide or in between low and high?
5. What distance was your anchor alarm set for?

1- 22 LBS, Lewmar plow. came with a 16.5 lbs claw .
2- Yes
3- this area has 2-3' tide change every 6 hrs. all of my drift problems happened right away.
4 - NE, don't recall at what point we were at with the tide. 16 ' came from the depth gauge.
5 first 50' then 100'

 

[Glenn LaMay]

One other point on scope - from what I understand you should also factor in the bow height above the water, e.g., if you are in 16' of water, and your bow is also 4' above the water, then 5:1 would be 100' of rode, not 80.

Is there a maximum length for scope?

 

[S. Todd]

Ranger Tug is not responsible for changing your anchor to something else you would like. There are numerous styles of anchors and lots of different opinions about what to use where and when. The stock anchor works fine for our purposes, but for others in different conditions they elect to purchase something else. It is easy to install a different anchor and a swivel on the rode if you elect to do so.

 

[scross]

1- 22 LBS, Lewmar plow. came with a 16.5 lbs claw .
2- Yes
3- this area has 2-3' tide change every 6 hrs. all of my drift problems happened right away.
4 - NE, don't recall at what point we were at with the tide. 16 ' came from the depth gauge.
5 first 50' then 100'

Ok. Now let’s calculate your scope. Assume worst case factors. 16 feet depth was at low tide. At high tide depth would have been 19 feet. Add 5 feet water to bow. For scope calculation you use 24 feet. You let out 150 ft of chain and line. Your scope was just over 6:1 which is excellent for your sandy bottom conditions with a good anchor set.
You have a good anchor for a sandy bottom.
Our boats swing a lot at anchor. Much more than many other boats. Shallow draft the culprit? And with your high scope you could travel quite a bit of distance with the swings in variable winds. Think normal swing at 2X your extended chain plus line or in this case 300 feet. Not unusual or problematic as long as you have good clearance from other boats or shallow water.
I would have set my anchor alarm for a minimum of 400 feet from the position I was when setting the alarm to account for swing.
If you really were dragging the anchor my guess is that it wasn’t a good set or that your sandy bottom was into a shallow layer and there was hard bedpan underneath the sand.
Hope that helps.

 

[Maggie Anne]

I had a R27 OB for 5 years and used the stock anchor with no issues. However, here in the PNW the conditions are different from yours. Going to a heavier anchor is a good upgrade. Is your sea bottom thickly vegetated, heavy weeds, thick grass? Plow anchors do poorly in those situations.