Relatively new to sailing, when I bought my second boat - a serious cruiser - it came with an anchor buoy - a round float and about 40ft of rope. I decided to use it from time to time - thinking that it would be neat to know where the anchor is, it might prevent people anchoring in exactly the same spot and if I fouled the anchor, it gives me a tripping line to retrieve the anchor with. I have never been religious in using it however - probably less than 20% of the time...

Recently on various websites I 've been reading about people being fed up with boats that deploy anchor buoys. I 'm not exactly sure of the reasons why - maybe someone here can enlighten me.

HOWEVER: I 've been off on a trip the last couple of weeks, travelling in tandem with friends on another boat. We came to anchor in Port Jefferson on Long Island, NY and anchored sensibly close together for sociability - not so close as to represent a threat. In the afternoon, a squall passed through and I watched with horror as my friend 's boat sailed around her anchor, with our anchor buoy passing between the stern of their boat and their dingy. Any closer and the buoy could have been collected by their rudder - and simply tripped our anchor as they continued to sail around theirs.

We remained lucky - but as soon as the squall passed, we upped anchor and removed the offending buoy.

Safe to say, I don 't think I 'll be using the anchor buoy again anytime soon - unless alone in a fouled anchorage perhaps...

Bill Balme

Yep, sounds complicated.

In our book, "Happy Hooking. The Art of Anchoring." we describe a way to retrieve a stuck anchor by shimmying a length of chain down the rode to the crown of the anchor from a dinghy; that 's after taking up the slack in the rode. Then you can use the dinghy to pull almost horizontally by the crown to free the anchor.

There are also commercial anchor retrieval systems like Anchor Rescue, Anka-Yanka, and Anchor Witch among others. The Anchor Witch website has a demo video that shows it retrieving a Rocna.

We 've only had one instance where that did not work. A friend anchored in a mooring field (always a bad idea)and got his anchor 's tip stuck in a link of a massive chain. It was wedged in so hard that it took several divers with equipment to free it. Neither a trip line nor any other retrieval system would have helped in that case.

Vice Commodore, OCC