Anchor line knot at boat cleat

[Rick Carpenter]

How or what knot are y'all using to tie the anchor line to a cleat on the boat when at anchor? I've been forming a loop outboard of the cleat, passing it through the legs, then using a locking cleat turn onto one of the horns. Then I take the bitter end (which may be quite lengthy) and tie a cleat hitch.

Alternately I could install chocks and run the anchor line through a chock then onto a cleat then tie a cleat hitch. The chock keeps the standing (anchor) end of the line at one steady angle around the legs before tying the cleat hitch, like at the dock.

What do y'all do?

[hoejef]

quick and easy one or two wraps and half hitch if i am staying on the boat

[Moser]

Sorry, I'm no help here, I'm on a manmade lake with, very little current and 105 miles of undeveloped shoreline, I very rarely anchor. I have thoses bungy docklines, with a loop[ at each end, on all four corners of my boat, when I do anchor, it is usually in 15 feet of water or so, I have 50 feet of line on the anchor, with a good carobiner, on the end. I drop the anchor in, snap the carobiner thru one of the loops and that's that.

[Rick Carpenter]

Just trying to figger out standard practices. We don't use two anchors and the shifting winds on the lake may rotate the boat not quite 180 but kinda close before it stabilizes 'downwind'. I worry that a rotating boat may compromise a regular cleat hitch, hence my method of passing a loop through the legs first.

[Captain Tony]

Hey Rick:
Well, we boat on the Lake of the Ozarks exclusively, (except for our annual 2 week Carnival cruises), and since the LOZ is large we mostly
cruise, dock at a restaurant, cruise more and dock back at our house. Because there are a few coves that we sometime take guests to
and spend some in-water time we will anchor using the same technique as our permanent dockage lash up.

That is usually to play out the rode, power back to give @ 5 to 1 scope and just feed the bitter end through the legs of a port cleat
and take 2 or 3 turns in both directions with the reverse loop over the horn. If no one else is in the cove this Danforth bow anchor
is sufficient.

If many boats are coving and there is a breeze I'll play out a stern mushroom anchor to keep us from swinging.
The tie down is the same for the stern but i should mention that both lines will have a final bitter end tied to another cleat.

Had to cancel the Carnival cruise in 2021 due to Covid but booked & on schedule for 2022.

[Richinnc]

Actually, I don't use one of the cleats on the boat. Not that trusting in them. I use the towing security o ring on the center tune. It is designed to hold much more than one the bow cleats. As for knot, cant go wrong with a simple anchor hitch or a bowline with a trailing end considering Im not using all the line at anchor.

[Rick Carpenter]

Captain Tony,

You almost had me changing my mind at...

That is usually to play out the rode, power back to give @ 5 to 1 scope and just feed the bitter end through the legs of a port cleat and take 2 or 3 turns in both directions with the reverse loop over the horn. If no one else is in the cove this Danforth bow anchor is sufficient.

However I like the idea of being able to cast off the whole rode if necessary in an emergency, so because I have a float tied to the bitter end (thanks Foghorn!) I can't use your simpler method. With the float I'd be able to retrieve the rode in case I'm anchored and I need to move quickly because some idiot party-boys are about to t-bone me.

Rick

[FogHorn]

RICK...!! You just MADE MY DAY! That is EXACTLY the logic which I also hold.

I take a turn around the cleat and then a loop (Figure 8) over one of the cleat-legs. The only time I go thru the cleat is if the bitter end at a dockline is a loop I can pass thru the cleat and then make a girth-hitch with the open loop.

PS: There’s a REASON Buccaneers had a preference for a cutlass.... It’s a great way in an emergency to part a line for a quick get-a-way.

Why or When would you want to do that, you ask? Have you ever tied up to a dock or rafted up with a group.... and the dock ...or one of the boats in the raft catches fire? I witnessed this on Lake Travis when the idiot two boats over from us decided to squirt more lighter-fluid on his slow-to-start charcoal grill and the plastic bottle split and a whole quart of fluid suddenly set HIM and his boat on-fire! HE dived over the stern (smartly saving himself) ...but leaving the rest of us tied to his burning boat. My machete was hidden somewhere but we got loose and it was a simple matter to toss the anchor-rode, which we were able to retrieve because of the float.

This actually had a not-so-bad ending... a patrol boat was just coming around the bend and into the cove and they put several fire extinguishers onto the boat and saved the boat with what looked like mostly uphostery-damage. The owners’ burns were only first-degree on his hand and lost his mustache and eyebrows.