While watching the snow fall here on the North Coast I have been pondering the subject of "anchor readiness". The anchor of choice for our area is a fluke style. The bottom conditions around here are perfect for a Danforth. Not to say that other styles are not used, they are, however for the sake of my question.....Danforth.

On our smaller boats we used all kinds of "rigs" to store our Danforths. Rail mount, deck mounts, rail hangers, etc. The boats were too small to have an anchor locker. I remember thinking that an achor locker would be such a cool thing to have, what a luxury. The Islander has a nice deep anchor locker with a stubby bow roller, it also came with....yep, a Danforth fluke style. Our delivery captain was very unhappy that the anchor was stored in the anchor locker, he insisted on having "at the ready" and set it up on the roller, lashed to the toerail with sail ties. After delivery I promptly removed the lashing and re-stowed it in this nice locker where the chain and rope fit so nicley. I also have a second Danforth, chain and rode (bagged) in the cockpit locker if needed.

So my question to the group is if your anchor is such a design that it doesn't have to store on a roller, does it really need to? I don't believe it takes any more time to deploy from a locker than it would to unpin the anchor on a roller and release a chain tensioner to free the rode? It certainly doesn't take as long to deploy from a locker as it does to untie sailties, but that's another discussion...:)