boat anchor & rode sizing

Rode & Chain

Anchor, chain and scope sized to your boat — not to a guess.

Anchor Sizing

"Anchor Weight per Foot: The Rule of Thumb, and Where It Breaks"

A pound per foot is a rule that works in the middle of its range and fails at both ends, for two different reasons.

4 min read

Anchor SizingFluke Anchors: Where They Excel, and the Two Bottoms That Defeat Them
The fluke anchor has the best holding-to-weight ratio in common use and two well-known failure modes. Both are about the bottom, not the size.
Anchor SizingReading a Modern Scoop Anchor Chart, and What Its Small Print Assumes
Modern anchor charts look interchangeable and are not. The difference between them is usually one line of small print about assumed wind speed.
Anchor SizingAnchoring a 24-Foot Boat: The Questions the Chart Cannot See
Two 24-foot boats can need different anchors. Length is the index every chart uses and the one variable that tells you least about the load.
Anchor SizingAnchor Sizing for Boats: Why Length Alone Cannot Answer It
Every anchor chart is indexed by boat length, and every one of them carries conditions in the small print. The load your ground tackle has to hold does not rise with length. It rises with length squared.

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