Studland Bay Sea Horses

[boristhebold]

I heard the following last week from a contact who is local to Studland.

Apparently many sea horses were tagged with some form of reflective tags so that the sea horses could be more easily kept track of as they are difficult to locate in their natural habitat within the sea grass. Unfortunately once tagged it made them more easy for their predators to find them and hence their numbers have dwindled in that area. No announcement has been made of this issue.

Any one else heard of this blunder ? Maybe its a rumour.

[Steve_B]

Not heard that one, but it would seem to make sense.

I heard that the volentary no anchor zone was being abandoned, as it apparently has made no significant impact. However, I think that may be down to the numbers using the bay being significantly down over the last few years.

Steve

[PeterM]

BBC News - Studland Bay seahorse no-anchor zone lifted

Report of the removal of the zone....

I'm not convinced that anchoring makes no differance.

[boristhebold]

Im not convinced either, when I pull my anchor up I usually have a very small amount of sea grass about 3 or 4 strands, Ive seen far more on other boats, last sunday a large cabin cruiser powerboat pulls its anchor up and there was about an armfull of the stuff stuck on the anchor. But there again I was looking at how he had anchored, just dropped the anchor and into reverse until the anchor bit into the bed, rather than doing what I do and drop anchor gentle and let out several metres of chain and then put in reverse till I see the rope on the end of the chain go tight. always holds and I dont carve the sea bed up.

Its always good sport watching people anchor at studland, many think its the anchors job to bite into the sea bed when in reality the anchor just helps to hold the chain in position and its the chain weight that does much of the work. Damn hard work manually pulling up several metres of chain ha ha ha.

[tonto]

Originally Posted by boristhebold

Its always good sport watching people anchor at studland, many think its the anchors job to bite into the sea bed when in reality the anchor just helps to hold the chain in position and its the chain weight that does much of the work. Damn hard work manually pulling up several metres of chain ha ha ha.

Not true.

The anchor holds the boat, but needs a horizontal pul to be efficient, which is why you need chain to make the pull on the anchor horizontal There is a lot of misconception about how an anchor works. The bottom line is you do NOT need to pull back to get the anchor to bite, as it does it when it needs to. Just let it out, and as long as there is not a huge pile of chain over the top of the anchor, it will bite when needed.

[Hightower]

I do loads of fishing. I just chuck anchor, chain and a hand full of rope over the side. If it's slack water I just get some reward momentum going and stick in to neutral. I let the rib do all the work of bedding in. If the sea is running I don't bother and let the run of the tide do all the work.

I recover manually and drive over the anchor whilst recovering the rope. This gets you near vertical over the anchor for a direct pull up. This saves my arms and minimises damage to the sea bed.

Others use the alderney bouy method which uses a bouy attached to the anchor rope. The boat drives in a large arc uptide of the anchor the rope passes though the bouy due to the water resistance exerted on it. The anchor ends up being trapped by the bouy. I wonder how much damage this does to the sea bed wot with swinging chains and anchors skipping along untill they are lifted clear.