| After a high wind cruise in weedy
conditions, it was very clear that our heavy Danford type anchor
was not able to reliably hold our MacGregor 25 sailboat from dragging.
After doing an extensive product reviews and reading tests of
anchors, it was clear it was worth trying the weed
anchor design. General anchoring comments and tests were reviewed
with some of the best being at Azuremarine
and Practical
Sailor.
Having a pretty good shop, we decided to look into building our
own weed anchor. We came across, on the Duckworks Magazine website,
a good article on two homemade weed anchors entitled Homemade
Anchors for Weedy Bottoms.
We modified one of the Duckworks article's anchor designs slightly
so that we could use what materials were in our supplies. Our
final design used three 1/4" steel plate triangular flukes
with a 14" base and an altitude of 7" which yields a
45 deg, 90 deg and 45 deg triangle. We had some 7/8" re-bar
that we used for the shank.
 |
The equilateral triangular anchor top was made
from 1/4" plate, finished size 3" on a side and
the trimmed top is shown below. One quarter inch pilot holes
were drilled at the base of each notch section, which receives
a fluke, and the center were the anchor shank passes through. |
Following the article’s instructions, we found with the
fluke size that we used, the base fluke point needed to be 4"
in from the triangle corners on the craft paper.
 |
The design calls for the flukes to be 17"
apart forming an equilateral triangle. We laid out the 17"
equilateral triangle on craft paper centered below a 3/4"
pipe stand. The pipe stand was bushed to ½" pipe
to accept our ½" pipe furniture clamps so that
easy adjustments could be made. The center point of a 17"
equilateral triangle is 913/16" from each corner. |
 |
The above jig allowed each fluke to be positioned
properly and squared. Braces were made from 1" strap
7" long with 1" ends bent 30 degs. Each brace was
held in position with clamps hen each piece was tack welded,
then final welded, when all were in their true position. The
final anchor is shown. |
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