queensland Pulley Anchor System

[samsteele115]

Purpose: -To anchor offshore with bow facing outwards (eliminates the risk of stern being swamped by shore-break waves in bad weather) using a single anchor

- To be easily retrieved without swimming out to boat 

What you need:

- 1× Sand anchor with chain and 5-10m length of rope attached to a buoy with stainless steel ring 

- 2x 50m length of rope 

- star picket (and mallet) 

How to: 

1. Throw out anchor, chain, short rope and buoy (all connected). Hold onto the buoy

2. Take one end of 50m rope and thread through the ring of the buoy

3. Securely attach that end of rope to your bow cleat

4. Throw buoy over board and reverse into shore (the rope through the ring and attached to your bow will unravel) 

5. Once on shore, take the other 50m rope and secure to stern of boat (this one pulls the boat to shore) 

6. Take both of the secured long lengths of rope up the beach with star picket.

7. Hammer in star picket above high tide line and tie off stern rope to keep boat in position if you need to unpack boat etc

Now you are ready to pull the boat out to the buoy and anchor

8. Untie stern rope from star picket and pull the bow rope. This will pull the boat offshore out to where you anchored

9. Once the boat reaches the buoy, tie off the bow rope to star picket. Then tie off the stern rope and you are set. 

Things to consider:

- Tidal swing. Fix star picket IN LINE WITH ANCHOR (estimate where it is) not in line with buoy. This will ensure that your tied off ropes won't become too tight and put too much pressure on the star picket at change of tide. 

- The stern rope doesn't need to be 50m it's just what I had. It doesn't hurt to have too much length though. The important 50m length is the one through the ring as it's doubled back when boat is on shore, so you need plenty of rope for that one. 

- Keep in mind the 5x rope length for depth rule when anchoring safely. I had about 5-6m rope attached to 4m chain so about 10m all up. This allows a safe anchorage in about 2m of water. If you know you're anchoring in a deeper channel then use more rope accordingly.

Blue= stern rope (pull this to bring boat ashore)

Red= bow rope through buoy ring (Pull this to take boat out to anchorage at buoy)

Yellow= anchor and chain and short length of rope attached to buoy ring with D shackle

Note: You'll notice that even though the bow is facing offshore that the current pushes it to one side. I allowed this to happen by not having stern rope tied off TOO tight. Just ensure the star picket is in line with anchor so that it can swing around the other way to create a mirror image without needing to reajust the ropes.  

You can pick up the bouy with ss ring from BCF or other relevant stores. 

Ensure you use appropriate knots and means of fastening (e.g. splicing rope to D shackle, seizing D shackles with stainless wire etc). The more safety stuff you do, the more sleep you'll get knowing your pride and joy is securely bobbing out there all alone

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by samsteele115

[samsteele115]

This is it in motion thanks to GT buster 

[Gad]

thanks samsteele115 the basic, effective off beach anchoring system, noobies will be able to add this to their growing knowledge bank 
I always have 2 sand anchors on board, one bow and one stern, I often use both when whiting fishing for anchoring across the lower tidal flows.... instead of using a star picket for off beach anchoring I use my stern anchor as the system`s  land/beach based tie off point, when needed

[samsteele115]

8 hours ago, Gad said:

thanks samsteele115 the basic, effective off beach anchoring system, noobies will be able to add this to their growing knowledge bank 
I always have 2 sand anchors on board, one bow and one stern, I often use both when whiting fishing for anchoring across the lower tidal flows.... instead of using a star picket for off beach anchoring I use my stern anchor as the system`s  land/beach based tie off point, when needed

Nice! I like that. So you tie off the bow rope to the stern anchor?? This trip was the first time I used the method so I still have some refining to do 

[Gad]

17 hours ago, samsteele115 said:

Nice! I like that. So you tie off the bow rope to the stern anchor?? 

I use my stern anchor where and how the star picket was used in the video... anchor in the sand on the beach above high tide mark, 1.5-2metres of chain shackled onto the anchor shaft and a stainless ring shackled onto the other end of the chain to pass the rope through.
I connect the loose ends of my bow line and stern line together so I am basically using one continuous circle of line and just double over the line to tie off at the ring on the chain at the anchor on the beach
I`ve found this to be a quick and easy way to position and reposition the boat through the tidal stages

 

[MattInOz]

As a complete boating noob thankyou for this... I was wondering how that worked.