What's the point of them, can anyone give me a fair dinkum reason for their existence?

They run about $1500-$2000 and the only people that give them a rap are the suckers that bought them.

It seems that none of them are designed to take the strain so the anchor rope has to be tied off anyway so that means a trip to the front of the boat everytime you anchor or unanchor, I just don't get it?

To my way of thinking the best they can do is save you pulling in a slack anchor after the traditional anchor yank with a float.

No ewe dont , it seems to be your life's story

Ewe just dont get it do ewe ??

I'll try & explain s l o w l y s o e w e ' r e w i t t l e w i t t l e b r a i n m a y h a v e s u m c h a n c e o f u n d e r s t a n d i n g

There's already too much bullshit on the net without you adding to it Jumpy.

Ewe just dont get it do ewe Fed ??

Geez you would not want to get your foot stuck in one of those would you

Hey Shiny FOOT !

Are ewe related to Mr Shiny Head ?????????????

I'd honestly love one.

Push the button your anchor goes down push the button in comes up, but then again i'm a lazy bastard.

Daniel. When you push the button to lower the anchor, how do you know it's anchored up properly?.
I would rather feel through my own hands that the anchor has firmly grabbed onto something!!.
I have never used one so am not critisizing the system, just something that I doubt would suit me.
Sometimes in a days fishing I might set and pull up anchor 5 or more times, in water 70 metres sometimes deeper,, how would the batterys cope with this sort of work ?.
I have been using the bouy retrieval system for around 20 odd years and old habits die hard.

Same can be said about a certain Seafairy owner who has electric whinch on his trailer
Charter operators who dont have a dicky 2 do the pulling
No mess all the rope gets spooled back onto the drum
Peeps who have bad access to bow of boat like seafairy owners

list goes on



Bullshit

Ewe just dont get it do ewe Fed ??

Ewe're confucoring Electric Anchor Winches with windlass's/capstan setup



Thats wot I've been trying to tell ewe

Buggers up my manicures Frank
I have a small 8" styrene ball float on board attached to short piece of rope & a longline clip it goes out just over a boat length b4 rope gets tied to the bollard when I see float go under i know pick is in.



That's why ewe have crew



Not a prob when your using winch your going & motor is running


Have fitted wun of these electric winches to a boat but wouldn't have wun myself, they're too bulky & wun should look @ stiffening/supporting place where it's attached

That's my understanding of them at the moment Jumpy, do you know of any anchor drum winches that don't need the rope tied off when anchored or pulling the anchor?

Ewe still dont get it do ewe Fed

No need to tie off the rope, my comments were in relation to mounting the winch securely to the boat once that is done then there's no probs

Glass goats should ideally have a pad glass'd in to accomidate large coach bolts
Alloy boats should have a frame welded in
Plastic boats ??? well they shouldn't even be on the water

I'll wait for as long as it takes.

Got tired of waiting for you Jumpy so I googled for a bit.
It seems that stress free winches don't need tying off so there you go, they sure do make it look easy in the video on their website.

This opens up some new questions, what do you do with a winch if you want to deploy a dan buoy?

Right now, what are members doing with the bitter end of their rope, mine's tied to a large plastic bottle & I'm going to put a loop in the end to slip over the bollard if I don't want to let it go when I'm at the end of my rope.

Cant be told can ewe Fed ???????????

Said I've fitted wun, in fact it went on the Action Charters boat 8 odd meter kevla cat



No need to GoogleFeddy just push the button & up comes the anchor

Never stop learning stuff Jumpy, I have a hatch which is very easy to use so I'll be sticking to the old anchor yank ball like Frank.

I never need to go up the bow. i have a painter with elastic band ( quiet a large one ) which takes the shock out of the anchor, and I have all the rope etc in the main part of the boat.
Unstretched

http://www.fishnet.com.au/content/fishnet/...d0d990c7a72.jpg

Stretched
http://www.fishnet.com.au/content/fishnet/...cabfcc9b58c.jpg

How do you go about deploying & retrieving the anchor Frank, sorta step by step if it's not too much trouble mate.

Fed for anchoring up I let the anchor with chain and rope out from the cockpit, side of boat till
I feel it properly set, I then watch my sounder and pay out rope till I am happy with my position
I then take the Painter, which is held in place with a Stainless quick release clip around my front grab rail and while holding the anchor rope with a little slack, I quickly do a double loop in the anchor rope and attatch the clip, If the current is very quick you may have to put motor into gear to hold position and get enough slack. I then let the rope go till it sets the boat firm with the painter.

Retrieving I take my foam buoy about 40cm in circumferance/across which is attatched to about 18 inches of rope that is spliced onto another quick release clip, ( the boat in bermi just has a large round O Stainless ring ) .
I pull the excess/painter toward me and while holding onto the anchor rope, detatch the painter and
replace onto the grab rail, and slip the release clip onto the anchor rope. If really tight I use the boat power in gear and idle toward the anchor.
I then let the buoy and rope go while I drive off on a slight angle, to avoid possible contact with motor driving toward the anchor, Upcurrent.
Mean while I have looped the loose part of the anchor rope around the rear bollard of the boat,
( Never ever under any circumstance TIE the rope to the rear of the boat anywhere ) and simply drive off into the swell till the buoy comes back to the surface and creates a rooster tail.
I then slowly head back to the buoy while easily pulling the loose/floating rope back into the boat with circular loops, when I have a hand full of loops I drop them into the anchor box with last piece of rope uppermost to prevcent any tangles. When all the rope chain and anchor is back neatly in the box, I go to my next place of call.
Some people put the buoy on the anchor rope when they anchor up, but I have got used to waiting till I want to pull up before attatching the buoy.
I can easily do this all by myself, but as I rearely go fishing solo It's easier with help, providing the help knows what to do.

Thanks Frank, although I nearly sunk my boat once I agree pulling from the back is OK so long as you know exactly what you're doing and where the dangerous part is. Pulling from the front has its own hazards like running over the prop.

Fed. Was with an experienced skipper who swore blind it was best to pull the anchor
from the bow of the boat. 99.9 times it's OK but that .1 of a persent bought him undone.
As he was motoring forward with the buoy doing it's thing, and holding the throttle
controls the anchor stuck firm, the rope streatched to it's maximum and stopped the
front of the boat dead in it's tracks, as the boat stopped and started to swing violently to Port
it lunged the skipper forward with his hand still on the throttle, it went to full power.
With his face smashed up against the windscreen and broken teeth, he managed to throw the
shift into neutral. By this time the boat had done a full 180 and was now facing the way we came from.
Another person was thrown out of the boat and was very lucky he was thrown clear of the prop
which at that time was spinning at around 7000 revs.
I picked myself up from the floor and switched the motor off, got my mate back in the boat
and gave a clean towel to the skipper to stem the flow of blood coming from his mouth.
No Fed,, I will never try and pull an anchor up from the bow,, and as I said NEVER ever
under any circumstances TIE the rope off at the rear of the boat.
I have been using the buoy system since around 1965 or so LONG long
before it ever became popular and have told thousands of people never tie the rope to the rear.
Always wrap it around the bolard and hold onto it, if it wants to grab you can allow the rope
to slip while you slow the boat down.