Been experimenting with this DIY anchor setup for a little under a year. Most of it is pretty standard as far as DIY goes, trolley kit from Amazon and a retracting clothesline spooled with a couple yards of paracord. I wanted an easy way to control how much anchor line goes out that wasn't an Anchor Wizard (I'll explain why later) and I found this piece from Nite Ize. Basically, the way I have it set up now allows me to let out anchor line when I flip that little tab on the right side up but when it's flipped down, it bites against the line and stops any more from being let out. If I want to retrieve my anchor I can just freely pull my anchor line in and the retractable clothesline will spool up the slack. The clothesline isn't strong enough to pull up my 3.5lb anchor on its own so the line usually stays at however much I let out.
The main reason why I opted for this instead of just buying an Anchor Wizard is because I wanted my setup to be as light and modular as possible. Since I'm using an inflatable NRS Kuda (see more about my setup here), I wanted to be able to easily remove as much from the kayak for when I'm transporting it in its carry bag. I couldn't really see a convenient place to mount an Anchor Wizard on my setup which would not only allow me to actually use it but also be able to remove it when I wanted to. With this setup I can clip/unclip the SlideLock from my anchor trolley and just keep it with the retractable clothesline which is secured to my removable motor bracket using stainless steel hose clamps. My anchor is also clips on using a carabiner for easy storage and transport later.
So far this system works mostly as I want it to which is keeping my anchor line neat when its both deployed/retrieved. When it comes to actually deploying/retrieving an Anchor Wizard definitely has it beat in terms of ease of use which is fine, I never expected it be better to but for my use case I think it's a pretty slick alternative. Let me know what you all think or if you have any suggestions on how to improve it.
Posted by Tricky5hift
1 Comment
How long is the clothes line? I use a harbor freight retractable leash that is 24’ for something similar. The leash has a button to fix the length of the line but I almost never do that, ie I let out as much as it wants.