Dinghy anchoring

Hi Guys, I’ve got close to what you describe. You are correct – if your tender is too heavy to drag down the beach, you need to go ashore on a rising tide and leave before it drops and lands your tender. The option of anchoring off with the loop system is definitely a better option than swimming with crocs.

I have 100M of 6mm braid. The whole thing is stored in a milk crate so I can take it off the dingy. You will need a small fold up anchor on an approx 6M of braid warp and chain to a swivel pulley. You can’t use the anchor on the tender because you will have to disconnect it from the tender each time you use this system, and the warp on the tender anchor will be too long. I used sinking braid, mainly because another boat might run over a floating rope. Otherwise floating should be OK. Don’t be tempted to use twisted rope such as 3 strand silver or nylon – the main beach lines (loop) will twist around each other, and it’s very hard to pull the twist out when standing on the beach 50M from the tender.

Tie the ends of the 100M beach line to the tender’s fore and aft cleats to keep the ends separated. This helps to stop the beach line twisting together. It’s also easier to prevent twists in the beach line by keeping he beach ends (loop) apart from each other. IE Don’t tie both ropes to the same tree on shore.

See attached rough sketch.

PS. I forgot to mention that I have an approx 120mm diameter foam float running on the anchor warp between the pulley and anchor chain to help keep the pulley near the surface.

Hope this helps, Ross

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Ross.
• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Ross.

Ross. Is your dingy only ever in 6m of water in the Kimberleys? I’m thinking otherwise float could lift anchor? Thanks. Great post.

On my setup, the foam float gets dragged under by the weight of the chain. The float only needs to be big enough to keep the pulley off the bottom. Also, if you leave a little slack in the loop rope between the pulley and the beach, it has the effect of lengthening the anchor rode. Normally we only leave the dinghy for max. 3-4 hours while ashore, and it would be unusual for us to drop the anchor in more than about 4M depth. We mostly use the system with an ebbing tide, so the depth is lessening anyway.

It’s one of those practice makes perfect things. You will soon learnt what you can and cant do. I found out last year that the fold up anchors are useless in a breeze with a 700kg dinghy, and changed to a small danforth style sand anchor.

Cheers Ross

Great. Thanks Ross. See you next year.

Hi Ross, I have a setup using sinking 6mm (or is it 8mm, I can’t recall) anyhow, I have been pondering whether to change it to floating, and here it seems you prefer sinking, but elsewhere in the forum I read a comment you made regards problems with sinking line getting caught on rocks etc. It seems one of those things where there are reasons for and against both. Like my decision to have a 4m Whaly with 25hp 4 stroke, means all up it weights 275kg, but it is tough and croc proof I think. But its a lot of weight to lift up on my davits, and there is no way we can drag it anywhere on any beach ever, tried that, failed. So kind of gain in one area, lose in another. I am half of a mind to take a 2nd super light tinnie tender that I can lift with a halyard and put on my front deck, that gives us the option of a lighter tender when we think we may need to drag it up and down a beach, and the heavy duty one for heavy duty trips where we want safety, but when we will not be coming back to it in a falling tide. Your thoughts on this? Having only ever done the top end on commercial vessels (done coastal surveys, exploration, worked on aquaculture farms and in WA managed a pearl farm) but they always have heavy and almost never needed to be beached or left – we were always on or with the vessels. So this little boat thing is new to me, I thought the 4m Whaly (200kg) was small, but when I tried moving it, realised a tinnie with a kapten collar may be a solution?

Compromise. Definitely a key word in boating. I found the sinking 6mm braid was easily snagged around rocks. Now use 6mm Telstra rope, which floats and supposedly has around 650 kg breaking strain. Downside with floating rope, is other boats running over it, but that’s unlikely to happen in the KC.

A lightweight tinny with a Kapten Collar is the way to go. Crocs cant eat it, which means you can leave it in the water overnight, it has built in fenders, stable, heaps of buoyancy and light enough to haul on board and off a beach if you get stuck. In reasonable weather, its common to see these towed around the KC rather than lift it on board each time you move anchorages. They are also generally tough enough to take the punishment the KC will hand out if you intend exploring the place properly.

Plastic tenders are also great in the KC because they are almost bullet proof. You can land it on an oyster covered rock and the worst that’s likely to happen is a scratch in the plastic. I had a 3.6M Plaka on my previous boat in the KC and it copped a real hammering over the years. A huge advantage with plastic is not being concerned about pulling up to rocks to get off the boat to go exploring ashore, which is the case with many places in the KC. On a RIB you definitely think twice about pulling up alongside a barnacle covered rock, particularly if you have just passed a croc in the creek.

My summery.

Plastic is tough and robust, but heavy if you have to move it on shore.

Light tinny is the best compromise when considering weight, toughness and versatility. A Kapten Collar is a huge improvement for safety, buoyancy and built in fenders.

RIBs, are convenient and light weight for small cruising yachts. But their Kimberley coast nickname of croc teething rings is not unfounded. They cannot be safely landed against rocky shores without potential damage to the pontoons. They are used in the KC, but plenty of common sense is needed, and be prepared to not go ashore at oyster and barnacle covered rock landings, common in many anchorages.

Rubber duckies with inflatable floor. Forget it.

Last but not least. Whatever tender you take, size matters. A croc will pull down a 500kg cow without trouble. So what is a croc thinking when it sees a tiny RIB floating by with a few meal size humans on board?

• This reply was modified 2 months, 4 weeks ago by Ross.