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.................................................--- Bags & More Bags ---
During our first year of sailing Ruth made one bag with the Singer and we used it for a shore line, which was 200 feet of 3 twist nylon anchor rope. We kept another spare anchor line (1/2 inch) in.....
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... one of the cooler bags and it usually stayed on the boat. If I took this line to shore Ruth would feed it out to me as I rowed the dinghy ashore. At Lake Powell we sometimes needed more than 200 feet of line to tie to a rock on the shore and I'd take the one end of the 1/2 inch line in the dinghy and when at the end of it tie the 3/8 inch line in the bag Ruth made to the end and proceed. I really liked Ruth's bag as the line always streamed out of it without getting tangled and you just stuffed the line in when you were ready to move on.
We wanted to have more "good" shore lines in bags and move the one out of the cooler bag. We bought another 200 feet of 7/16 inch 3 twist nylon line that was of better quality than the 1/2 inch one and will use it on the new 25 lb. Manson Supreme anchor. The old 1/2 inch line would be dedicated as shore line. We also bought another 200 foot 3/8 3 twist line for a third shore line. That gives us 2 two hundred foot 3/8th lines and the one 200 foot 1/2 inch line.
You might ask why are all of these lines needed? Our closest big lake, Lake Powell, is a canyon lake and sometimes is over 500 feet deep a very short distance from shore. This makes anchoring very difficult at times and your only option then is to find a .....
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.....sand beach or ...
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....tie to shore and sometimes it is very far to a suitable rock to tie to. You can have winds there in excess of 50 mph so having good shore lines is essential for safety. Since we try and anchor out every night our shore lines are just as important as our anchor lines and of the same quality.
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Ruth made some new bags for the three shore lines along with some other bags that we could use for other needs like carrying essentials along in the dingy. We didn't get pictures of the construction, but she did use the free instructions on Sailmaker's Supply. The instructions are good and easy to follow.
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Above are the three bags for the shore lines.
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They stay open at the mouth of the bag and you just stuff the line into the bag shake the bag up and down every so often and the lines will come out tangle free.
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One end of the line exits the bottom of the bag via a grommet. This give you a couple options. Tie or cleat that end of the line to the boat and row to shore with the line streaming out of the bag and then tie the other end of the line to a rock or tree. Then just pull yourself back to the boat. The bag stays on the line. If you run out of line before getting to that rock or tree tie the line off to the end sticking out of the next bag and keep going.
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Here you can see the end coming out of the bottom. I plan on putting thimbles on the other end of the lines also. Then if you need to attach two together use a shackle through the two thimbles and you have a connection between the two lines that doesn't weaken them as much as a knot does.
The grommets for the draw string and bottom just snap together and we got them from Sailrite. I punched the holes into the bottom of the bags for the grommets.
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Here Ruth had finished making the anchor sail and we folded and rolled it up and stuffed it into....
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.... the smallest bag that she had made that is about 10 inches from the bottom to the rope tie.
If you enjoy sewing get some Sunbrella and grommets and make some of these. Ruth enjoyed the project and you probably will also.
