Boating Tips: How to Set Your Anchor

Welcome to Boating Tips with MarineMax! In this week’s Boating Tips, Captains Keith and Nick discuss the how to set your anchor properly and get the best results possible. Ask your questions, make comments, and learn a thing or two about your favorite outdoor activity.

Boating Tips

How to Set your Anchor

Setting your anchor isn’t as easy as just throwing it in the water and forgetting it. There are some important things to keep in mind so that you do it right and get the best result possible.

Scope

How much anchor line you have out as well as how it is behaving in the water is a major indicator of how your anchor will set (or not set).

Too much or too little scope can affect the angle that your anchor is sitting at and therefore impact how well your anchor catches the bottom. It is important to come up with a system to keep track of how much anchor line you have out.

Chain

It isn’t just your anchor rope that you must be conscious of, but the amount of chain that you have as well.

Consider what you’ll be using your boat anchor for as well as where you’ll be anchoring. More chain helps your anchor to sink faster as well as hook into the bottom better. Additional things to consider are the length of your vessel as well as your ability to pick up/pull the anchor and its weight.

Typically, anchors should have anywhere from five to fifteen feet of chain depending on the size of the boat.

More on Anchors

Want to learn more about anchoring? We have resources on how to retrieve a stuck anchor, how to choose the right anchor for your boat, and more! Come by our shipstore if you want hands-on help, or check out any of our aforementioned resources. We’ll see you out on the water.

NEED MORE BOATING NEWS?

You can see or hear more episodes of Boating Tips and our sister podcast, From the Helm Boating Broadcast, on The MarineMax Blog, accessible on the website or via mobile phone through the MarineMax App. You can also access more episodes on Amazon, Spotify, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast news. See you out on the water!

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