Our Favorite Products While at Anchor
Sailing is great and all, but we really do this for life at anchor. Most cruisers are like us, and use our sailboats as a means to travel and see the world. Since most cruisers only spend about 10% of their time sailing, most of our lives are spent at anchor. That means that the gear and equipment that we use while on the hook actually see the most use. Some, like our anchor, we consider to be top priority safety gear, and others just make life better. After all, that’s what its all about. Here are some of our favorite products that we use living life on the hook.
When we purchased Via she came with a bunch of equipment, including a , which I promptly stowed away deep under the quarter berth. I had assumed we wouldn’t need it while in the protected waters of the Salish Sea, and I honestly didn’t really think it would be that effective. So our flopper stopper spent over a year without seeing sunlight or salt water, until we got to Cabo San Lucas. Cabo has a large open anchorage that, while protected from the prevailing winds, is open to any South swell and has tons of boat traffic during the day. Taylor finally convinced me to dig out and rig up the flopper stopper. The improvement in the boat’s motion was substantial and immediate. I was surprised how much less Via rolled, and suddenly you could read or look at your phone without the immediate urge to throw up.
Rigging the Magma Rock-N-Roll Stabilizer is quite easy. Now that I’ve done it a few times, I can set it up on our whisker pole in about 10 minutes. The hinged two piece stainless steel construction is robust, and it folds nearly flat for easy stowage. We now keep our flopper stopper in our lazarette in easy reach, and set it up any time we are in a rolly anchorage.
After renting paddle boards while visiting family in Marina Del Rey, CA, we knew we wanted to get some of our own. I spent a long time researching various brands, and I kept coming back to Isle Paddle Boards, based in San Diego. In all reviews I read, Isle got top marks for quality and customer service. Plus, their boards look great.
I first ordered two of the Outpost model, which is a hard board. But, when one arrived with damage received during shipping, I had to send one back. The customer service at Isle was excellent, and they made the return a breeze. After some more thought we decided to instead get an inflatable board, so we now have one of each. The inflatable we got is the eleven foot long Pioneer. The inflatable is extremely stable, which is awesome for learning, taking the dogs out, or just taking a leisurely paddle or lounging on. We often use the board as a sort of raft tied off Via’s stern. The hard board is a little less stable, but is more maneuverable and a bit faster. Both boards have soft rubber tops which are grippy and perfect for our two dogs. They have held up great to abuse and the quality of both is top notch. The inflatable board holds air shockingly well, and I’ve never had to add air even after 4 months. As a bonus, the inflatable board came with a huge duffle which can be worn s a backpack, used to store the board when deflated. Since we usually just stow the board on the side rail, the duffle mostly gets used for hauling laundry to shore. It would also make a great bag for travel if you need something big enough stop store a body.
I picked up one of these burley chain hooks right after we purchased Via. I had been eyeing them anyway, but when I saw a used one pop up nearby I jumped on it. This is not your average chain hook. Not only is it probably strong enough to pick up your entire boat, it has a rubber strap which wraps around the chain, making it nearly impossible for the hook to fall off. I especially like how the design keeps the direction of force in line with the force on the chain. Most chain hooks essentially put a kink in the rode, and while I’ve never heard of a chain in reasonable condition parting even at the hook, it just makes sense to me to keep the strain on the links in a straight line. In over a year of use, we have broken one of the rubber straps used to secure the hook to the chain, but this only happened because I was careless in how I bought the hook over our bow roller. Mantus has the forethought to provide spares, which are easy to replace. If something fails in your ground tackle set up, it will not be this chain hook.
We did a full blog post about our Mantus M2 Anchor here, so I won’t go in to to much detail. The main thing to know is, we love our anchor! It sets reliably the first time, and just as important, resets itself when the wind shifts. It stows cleanly on the bow, is seriously strong, and we have never had it drag. Mantus also has excellent customer service and stands by their products. Five out of five stars.
The built in sound system on Via was defunct when we purchased her, and instead of replacing it with a hardwired system, we decided to keep it easy. With the quality and ease of wireless bluetooth speakers these days, we just didn’t see any reason to bother with installing a permanent, fixed setup. Our JBL Speaker is compact, water proof, holds a charge for a long time, and best of all, has excellent sound. We use it to play music from our phones and connect our computers to it while watching movies and tv shows. It’s small size makes it easy to throw in a back pack and bring to the beach, and the bluetooth range has never been an issue on our 40 foot boat.
We actually got these as a white elephant gift at a Christmas party a few years back. We didn’t even unpackaged them until we moved aboard Via, but we now use them constantly. These rechargeable LED Candles serve many purposes. We use them for extra light while cooking or while Taylor does her nails, we set them up in the cockpit for ambiance or extra light, we hang them from the bimini if we plan to go ashore at night so our boat is easier to spot, or we use them on the candle setting in place of real candles (Mike has a phobia of using real candles on board). They last a good 18 hours on a single charge, and have several settings you can select from to change color.