Why I love my windlass anchor

[Patriot 8713]

When we had a tri-toon, we had a lot of issues anchoring with the wind and muddy bottom at Table Rock Lake. I made a grapple anchor by taking a section of pipe, 5 pieces of re-bar shoved into the bottom, bent them up and then welded them together at the base, filled it with lead that we melted and poured in, and then put a loop at the top before the lead cooled. It worked really good and I could always get it unstuck from debris since the re-bar would bend straight and then I could just bend it back in shape. It was a complete pain to get the anchor out from the back storage area and weighed about 40lbs so pulling it up from 100+ft was a little of a chore. I also had to use a rear anchor (an old Mercruiser cylinder head - redneck, but effective) to hold it from swinging around in a circle. We had plenty of storage, so that was not an issue.

[tgrace98]

muddy bottom of table rock?

I use an 8lb digger anchor and it grabs every time at TRL

[Patriot 8713]

We went to several coves that had mud towards the back that would not hold an anchor very well, but you are correct that mud is not the norm.