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Sea anchor or Drogue

2K views 16 replies 12 participants last post by  chucklesR 
#1 ·
Which one will keep you afloat longer when hell falls upon you?

Assuming that:

1. You are in the middle of ocean with plenty sea room
2. You just want to stay alive on your boat regardless the direction you are heading.
3. You are short handed or alone

When everything is equal, I think drogue is easier and safer to deploy. I 'd like to hear others actual experience or their thought processes in this matter.
 
#2 ·
I think it's a matter of what you're personally most comfortable with deploying and using.

I haven't used either, but my father survived a direct hit from Hurricane Mitch at sea lying to a ParaTech sea anchor. He recommends them to anyone who asks and takes one along on any offshore passage.

The big plus with that method is it puts the strongest part of the boat (the bow) into the wind. I would think, although I could be wrong, that this would also result in a slightly more comfortable motion than a drogue from the stern - comfort in those conditions certainly being relative. He reports that it was next to impossible to wedge himself in tight enough to stay put anywhere.

I can certainly see the benefit with a drogue of deploying from the cockpit rather than the bow, though.
 
#5 ·
I see your (ur father's) point for sea anchor. If I prep myself ahead, deploying sea anchor with minimal risk can be done, such as getting the anchor bridle before heading out and store the sea anchor in the chain locker. I am pretty compact, I can stay inside the chain locker when deploying the sea anchor.

After reading the Book "A storm too soon", I am thinking to install a five point seat belt harness on the top of the companion way to keep me in place. Oh yeah, helmet too.
 
#9 ·
IMHO

Sea anchor - off the bow, maybe on a bridle, keeps bow into wind and waves, used on "modern designs that are subject to pooping, the rudder needs to to centred and kept there to prevent damage.

Drogue - off the stern, slows the boat down, keeps stern to wind and waves, used on boats with sufficient flotation in the stern.

I have never had to deploy either one.
 
#12 ·
I have no personal experience with this but from everything I've read a sea anchor is used as a last resort. It's for when all hell has broken loose & you're in survival mode. A drogue is for when you want to keep sailing & the waves are from the stern. The drogue slows you down enough so the waves pass under you & you're not surfing down the crests.

I would spectulate that the use of a sea anchor would require a serious re-enforced attachment point.
 
#13 ·
I have no personal experience with this but from everything I've read a sea anchor is used as a last resort. It's for when all hell has broken loose & you're in survival mode. A drogue is for when you want to keep sailing & the waves are from the stern. The drogue slows you down enough so the waves pass under you & you're not surfing down the crests.

I would spectulate that the use of a sea anchor would require a serious re-enforced attachment point.
Both require serious attachment points and the drogue is also for survival situations. No one would deploy it casually, as its close to impossible to retrieve. Imagine suddenly surfing backwards down a wave because your anchor came out of the next wave.

The say no one has ever lost a boat with a drogue deployed. Sea anchors can be pulled out of the face of an oncoming wave and lurch the boat doing damage.
 
#14 ·
Bought a Jordan series drogue from the folks in England. Delightful to work with and very straight forward. Quality of device is such I'm glad I did not buy a kit and do it myself. Have boat set up so bridle attachment points are far apart and chaff minimized. Deployment bag is quite clever and would allow even a fat old man like me to deploy it by myself. Hope the creek don't rise and it always stays below. Can use a rolling hitch on a piece of small stuff and then the primary to winch back in and replace in deployment bag. Wash down with fresh water at later date. From what I read a series drogue is more likely to allow survival even in cyclical storm setting.
 
#15 ·
I think it's pretty simple. Drogues keep the boat moving and under control and sea anchors are used when there's no one to steer. However, and I can't stress this enough, if you use a sea anchor, you are risking your steering. You are being pushed backwards by some pretty powerful forces (like who uses a sea anchor in calm conditions?) and no matter how you secure the helm, the steering (cables, rudder or tiller) is at grave risk.
In most conditions which I've considered serious enough to use either, I have laid a-hull, hove to or run under bare poles, though I carried a drogue on my circumnavigation. I no longer do, but could cobble together something w/ nearly a 1000 feet of anchor line and lots of anchors aboard. I think a tire w/ chain wrapped around and shackled to the line w/ a splice and thimble is just fine and you can change the tire size for each boat; don't spend a lot of money.
 
#16 ·
Yep drogues/sea anchors and anchors is about the same, there will be differing opinions which will all be right for the people who hold them.

Personally I will never lie bow-on to a sea anchor for reasons of steering gear already mentioned. My probably naive view is that if the boat is moving with the weather no matter how slowly, it has to be better than standing still and taking what comes.

Having had a 35ft swell break and send 10ft of white water onto my boat, I wonder about the ability of a parachute to stop the boat going backwards and threatening the steering systems.

Bare poles is no good - my boat easily does 9 knots downwind under bare poles on 75+ knots (been there) and at that speed it surfs. There are some on this board that say they love surfing their boats but a 44ft boat taking off down a swell of unknown but obviously very large proportions in the dead of night takes a very stout heart, better than the one I have.

So for me it's a drogue that keeps the boat at 4 - 5 knots, stops it from surfing and allows me to travel with the forces that are threatening to kill me rather than wait around for them to achieve it. Drogues are also easier to recover than parachutes - I am putting a small capstan on the aft deck for this purpose. I'm getting too old to manually recover either.

I wouldn't know where to stow a tyre wrapped in chain - I have 140 metres of 30mm line (old superyacht jib sheet) with big knots tied every 10 metres. It slows my boat from 10 knots to an stable, manageable 4. Frankly, I don't know where I'm going to stow that either but it is a lot less agricultural.

Different strokes, different folks, there will no doubt be many who disagreee with the above - I don't care.
 
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#17 ·
Having read the aforementioned thread - and a lot of blogs and logs - I would think that it's still really depends on the boat for which is best.
Coming from a catamaran background my preference is a drogue (or a warp) to slow me down. That allows me to be active, if I can be active.
It's also a little easier to retrieve once you stop needing it.
 
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