Set it once. Sleep properly.

Not just looked at from the helm. Get up there, run some chain out, and check it moves the way it should.

Rust and salt build up in the gypsy and on the pivot. A stiff anchor that will not rotate out of the roller is a job for a Saturday morning, not for an approach with your family aboard.

Release the brake and confirm the chain runs out under its own weight, then stops cleanly when you wind the brake back on.

This matters more than most owners realise. Free spooling is what lets you put the anchor exactly where you want it. If you have to winch it down on the motor, the boat drifts off the spot while the anchor is still on its way to the bottom.

Know exactly where it lives and put it back there every time.

This is not a thing to go hunting for on the foredeck with the boat drifting down onto somebody's stern.

Run the windlass up under power and confirm it lifts properly.

Down is gravity. Up is the motor, the breaker, the solenoid and the battery all working together. That is the half that fails, and you find out at the end of the day when you want to go home.

You are about to tell your crew how much chain to pay out. They need to be able to see the marks to call it.

Faded paint or missing cable ties means somebody guessing. Guessing on scope is how you end up dragging at two in the morning.

Not what it is doing now. What it does for as long as you intend to sit there, including overnight if that is the plan.

An anchorage that is perfect at two in the afternoon can be untenable by ten at night when the wind backs.

Anchor where the wind is blowing off the land toward you. The land gives you flat water and shelter.

There is a second reason, and it is the one that matters. If you drag off a weather shore, you drag out into open water where you have room and time to sort it out. If you drag off a lee shore, you go onto the beach or the rocks.

Wind protection and swell protection are two different things.

A bay can be flat calm on the surface and still roll all night if swell is wrapping around the headland. That is the difference between a good sleep and a miserable one.

Arriving at high water is a completely different depth to sitting there at the bottom of the tide six hours later.

Work out what is under your keel at low water, not what your sounder says on arrival. And work out how much more water is coming in, because that is scope you need to allow for.

Off the chart or the boating app while you are planning the passage.

Rocks, cables, restricted areas, shoaling. Find them while you are sitting down with a coffee, not while you are trying to read the water on the way in.

Mud, sand, shell, weed or rock. The chart will usually tell you.

It decides how well you hold and how far the anchor drags before it bites. Sand and mud set well. Rock and heavy weed may not set at all, and you will not know until the wind comes up.

Who is on the helm, who is releasing the anchor, who is watching the chain, who has the tender.

Named people. Not a general request for a hand, which gets you either nobody or three people in the way.

Where you intend to anchor, how much chain is going out, and what the marking looks like so the bow can call it.

A crew that knows the plan can tell you when something is going wrong. A crew that does not can only follow orders one at a time.

Say it out loud, to everyone, before you start.

People wander at exactly the wrong moment. Usually to the bow, to watch, right where the chain is running.

Nothing goes in the water until you give the green light. Not when the boat looks stopped. Not when the chain goes quiet. When you say so.

You may need to lift and reset. You cannot do that with people and inflatables in the water around the boat.

Anyone on the bow is leaning over the side, around moving chain, near an unguarded edge.

It takes ten seconds and you will be extremely glad you insisted if anyone goes in.

Headsets, handhelds or hand signals, whatever suits the boat. Then test it before you need it.

Agree the signals for chain out, further left, further right, stop, and something is wrong. Wind and engine noise means shouting does not work, and the bow is the furthest point from you on the whole boat.

Release the brake, let the chain pour out, wind the brake back on once enough is out.

Say it in those words. If you have not explained it, somebody will improvise, and improvising with a free-running chain goes badly.

Devil's claw off, lashings off, latches off. Sitting on the brake and nothing else.

Lower it out of the hawse pipe so it hangs a little clear. Then when the brake comes off, gravity does the rest immediately rather than the anchor needing to be shaken free.

Ripples and streaks on the surface for wind. Movement around buoys, mooring balls and pilings for current.

You need to know which is stronger, because that is the one you approach into and the one that will lay your chain out for you.

Look at where they will end up, not just where they are sitting now.

A boat on a short scope and a boat on seven to one swing very differently. Watch which way they are lying and how much chain you can see. Swimmers in the water too.

Come up on the spot from downwind or down current, whichever is stronger, so you are pointing into it as you arrive.

Then when you let go, the boat naturally falls back off the spot and lays the chain out along the bottom for you.

Bleed the momentum off gradually on the way in so you arrive at the spot already stopped.

If you need a big burst astern to kill the way on, you came in too fast. That burst also kicks the stern sideways and puts you somewhere other than where you wanted to be.

The crew look aft to you. You give the word. Not before.

An anchor let go while the boat is still moving forward lands under your own bow and the chain piles on top of it.

Let the wind or current carry you back off the spot while the chain runs.

You are laying the chain along the bottom in a line, which is what lets the anchor load up properly and pull horizontally rather than straight up.

Watch it go. It should be running out steadily as the boat moves back.

This is the catch with free spooling. If the boat is not moving back, the chain dumps straight down in a heap on top of the anchor. The boat feels held because the weight of chain is holding it. Nothing is set at all.

Bow calls the marking, you confirm it against the plan, brake goes on.

If in any doubt about how much is down there, put more out. Chain in the locker is doing nothing for you.

Stand and watch it for a minute. It should bounce, take tension, then sag back down. Then do it again.

That rhythm is what good holding looks like. A chain that goes bar tight and stays there, or one that never loads at all, is telling you something is not right.

Gently. Enough to load the anchor and pull it into the bottom so it sets properly.

You are not trying to drag the boat backwards. You are asking the anchor to bury itself. Ease it on, hold it briefly, ease it off.

Pick something on the beam. A headland, a piling, a moored boat, two objects that line up.

You will swing left and right on the chain, and that is fine and normal. What you are checking is that you are not still moving backwards through the water.

Start a track. It shows you the shape of your swing, and a drag shows up immediately as the track walking off in one direction.

If you are using your phone for this, plug it in. A running GPS track will flatten a battery in a few hours, usually overnight, exactly when you need it.

Takes the load off the windlass and puts it on a line you can see, with some stretch in it.

Best practice for an overnight or a long stay. Not necessary if you are stopping for lunch.

Shut them down, but keep them available.

Tell the crew that too, so they know the day can change. Nobody should be halfway through dismantling something in the engine room.

Now, and not before. Say it clearly so everybody hears it.

That moment is also worth marking, because it is when the anchoring evolution is genuinely over.

Distances change through the day as the wind and tide shift and boats come and go.

Check it now and again. The boat that anchored a comfortable distance away at lunch may be a lot closer by evening.