The power and freedom a Personal Water Craft (PWC) provides is simply awesome. And the ability to go places no other craft can, takes them to another dimension.

The only drawback of a PWC (also known as Jet ski or Sea Doo) compared to a boat is the ability to fish effectively in deeper water over structure. 

Because ski’s drifts quicker than boats and big waves, or the wake of a passing boat can throw you off, it’s dangerous to anchor over rocky ground (where the fish often are) because your anchor may get stuck. Therefore, it’s extremely important to be able to release an anchor if it does get stuck. If you’re forced to cut it free, a primary safety device is then no longer available to you.

Anchor features

PWC anchors are manufactured and sold for all manner of reasons apart from the task they are intended to perform. Made to be inexpensive or designed to fit a PWC storage space. They may be light for their size, easy to handle or use a coating that won’t scratch fiberglass.

All these desirable features, are however, a complete distraction from the whole purpose of an Anchor, which is to stop a ski and keep it where it is. Any feature of an anchor that does not deliver stopping power or make it easier to retrieve, is wishful thinking for the sake of convenience!

Anchor safety

Anchors are a safety product that can be thought of like a fire blanket. It may be a tool you never need to use. But when you do need one, the realisation a good anchor could have prevented complete catastrophe may not be of much use unless you already have one. As you may not get another opportunity to be better prepared.

Anchors by nature are a tool that must work in a broad range of environments. The variables on the seabed are infinite. No matter what anchor you have, you are going to need one that works just about anywhere. Because you can’t know for sure what kind of ground you are going to be on when you need it.

Common PWC anchors

Due to the size of Skis and their storage constraints, the Danforth style, grapple and Cooper plastic anchors are the common anchors use.

Danforth style anchors can hold well, but as the tips of the flukes are close to the shank they tend to roll easily, have trouble setting and need a lot of chain. Grapple anchors can hold, on hard ground, yet provide almost no stopping capability in sand.

Cooper, plastic anchors can perform quite well in sand and medium density ground, but don’t perform well in mud and are almost useless on rock. They also need a minimum of 2 m of chain to be effective, so handling them from a ski is difficult. And the weight of the chain needed to make them effective negates the weight saved using plastic. In addition, the inability to easily remove sand and mud from the back pocket makes them painful.

For all the reasons above there has never been an effective Jet Ski anchor, until now.

Active Anchor DF300 - Releasable, Variable pitch anchor.

With a total weight of only 1.5Kg an Active DF300 anchor can safely hold a 14-foot fiberglass boat in a 2 Metre swell, so has no problem holding any ski, and easily fits the storage compartments of almost all skis.

More importantly, Active Anchors can be set to easily release when the anchor rope is pulled vertically. This is made possible due to a high tensile steel shank and toggle action release mechanism.

The release function has 4 settings from light to lock (no release), however what is not immediately obvious is that the light setting does not greatly reduce the holding power of the anchor in sand, mud or shale. This is because the flukes are held in a relatively static position in soft ground, which pushes the flukes backward toward the rear of the anchor keeping the spring links in their normal anchoring position.

The release function allows you to anchor with confidence on rocky ground knowing that you can get away with ease and not be concerned about falling in trying to pull up the anchor. Active Anchors provide the opportunity to safely fish from a ski in challenging locations where the fish tend to be.

The tremendous benefit of these anchors cannot be understated. It’s akin to thinking of driving a car without suspension. It can be done, but now we have good suspension systems, not using them would be considered ludicrous.

The real saving

Saving money on safety may result in payment of the ultimate price. So, if you only have one anchor, make sure it is the best, most versatile one you can get. Its why Active Anchors are manufactured in Australia using the best materials available. There is no substitute for quality when your life relies on it.

The inspiration behind Active Anchors came watching a boat float away from the beach on a beautiful day in a sheltered place in mild conditions. The anchor we had was useless and the need to watch the boat constantly detracted from the day and focused minds on safety and the need for a better tool for the job.

All anchors in one, superior performance on all ground.

Active Anchors – Embracing the forces of nature!