spike christopher
2008-10-14 18:40:49
Has any one out there used a sea anchor before? My boat is 75 thousand pounds and 48 feet in length. Nomar here in Homer has a design and I was thinking on purchasing one. Kate at Nomar will built it to any size. Any suggestions on size, she has one on the shelve now that is approximately three foot across, she calls them trolling chutes but can be used for sea anchors.
kuiutom
2008-10-18 04:37:37
When I had the ULLA (35' troller/sloop) I carried a Paratech 15' sea anchor and used it numerous times while well offshore when in storm weather. It worked like a charm, but I would not have wanted one any smaller. A three footer on a 48' boat would be useless as a sea anchor, in my opinion. It may work as a minimal drogue, employed off the stern to slow you in a following sea, or more likely as a drag, to slow your speed while trolling, but not as a sea anchor for anything more than a skiff. You really should have a long nylon rode on your anchor winch to deploy the thing as well. As I recall it seemed like you needed at least three swell lengths of distance to the sea anchor in order to keep it from jerking you around and yet keep the bow pointed windward. And chafing gear is a must. (After three back to back gales off Japan, I had it finally figured out). I never had occasion to use it for drifting at night when trolling offshore, although one certainly could. For salmon trolling, if the weather were dirty enough to call for a sea anchor, I'd run in rather than drift, but that's me.
Good luck!
spike christopher
2008-10-18 17:26:00
Thanks Kuiutom, that makes sense, one time several years back I was running the boat the "Waters, an old Fish and Game boat from Southeast" while crossing Shelokoff Straights west of Kodiak in some really bad weather an object flew across the engine room and hit the engine fuel filter causing a sever leak. I had to stop the engine to replace the filter and prime the engine. We laid in the trough for the entire time. It took a long time to clean the boat up after everything was thrown out of it's hiding place and onto the floor. I sure could have used one at that time. I was hoping Nomar's might might work. Thanks again for the come back.