At first sight they seem disproportionately expensive: £3.95 for a packet of ten minuscule bits of rubber. The packaging and label probably cost as much to produce as the anchor markers themselves. But probably £3.95 is the minimum price at which it's worth stocking and handling anything.
Fed up with painting markings on our anchor chain that seem to chip off straight away in the anchor well, we decided that, damn the expense, we'd give the these brightly coloured items a go. For not much more than the price of a pint, if they worked they would seem a bargain - just so long as you don't stop and think what the unit cost of manufacturing them might be.
They come in different sizes, for different weights of anchor chain. Fitting them - the instructions advised using a screwdriver to lever them into place - was almost too easy. You felt that if they went in that easily, they'd probably pop out just as easily.
Well, I can report that they haven't. They've stayed resolutely in place throughout the season, and we've used our anchor a lot. They've withstood rattling over the bow roller, running round the windlass, and lurching around in the chain locker, and remain just as reassuringly visible as when they were first fitted.
Rather than trying to remember a complicated colour code, we put one marker for ten metres, two for 20, three for 30, and four for 40, and thanks to the bright colours, they are really easy to spot. They do exactly what they say on the packet: take away all the guesswork.
And knowing how much chain you've got out there - and how soon to expect the anchor to break the surface as it comes back up - helps to take all the stress out of the whole anchoring experience.
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This is a simple, clever idea that seems to work well in practice. Time alone will tell how long the markers will stay in the chain, but at the moment they look secure for the duration. They might initially appear an unnecessarily expensive gimmick, but once you accept that they do the job they seem really good value!
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