Anchoring length: How much rope and chain to let out

Tony Barber: Hi, I'm Tony, I'm an ex professional fisherman. I still fish for pleasure and I look forward to teaching my grandkids the knowledge that I picked up over the years. I've got William with me today and he's still got a little bit to learn, but he's keen and that's what it's all about.

I think the common problem with anchoring is, people anchor too short. And by that I mean they drop their anchor over the side and tie it off. It hits the bottom and they think that's enough. You really got to have, depending on the depth of the water, the deeper you go, the more you need. Your basic rule of thumb for good anchoring is five lengths of rope for every meter of depth, so it's easy to work out. 10 meters go 50 meters of rope.

Okay, so here's a simple little diagram, showing you how the anchor should lay, if you've done it correctly with a nice catenary in it. Back to your chain, back to the anchor. 10 meters of water, 50 meters of rope and chain.

Typically when you go out, you'll see people just drop it down, straight down, and expect it to hook up, but it isn't gonna work. When the conditions deteriorate, strong winds, currents are strong, you might wanna go to eight to 10 to one. If you work on that, you'll be pretty all right.