Advice on how to make a proper Lego anchor( Discussion)

[Capitaine Aragon]

I recently decided to add an anchor to my flagship, Queen Catherine's Revenge. I found some chain pieces and some bricks and threw together a quick anchor. I am looking to improve it and ask if anyone has any advice on how to make a proper Lego anchor.

Here is my anchor that I threw together so far:

As you can see it is not the best anchor and is in need of a upgrade so if you have any advice or building tips, please share.

-Capitaine Aragon, The Cordial Pirate 

[Tezclatipoca]

Well, how to begin...

firstly, it's not a bad anchor, but it depend how realistic you want it. On your kind of ships that's fine because they are not meant to be exact replicas but more LEGO playing ships.

Perhaps you could use more wood on the anchor as many sail age anchors were built with many wood parts in fact.

I should suggest also to avoid chain to hold the anchor, except if you're building a huge flagship of the end of the sail age, many anchors were just attached to the capstan with solid ropes.

The capstan itself could be more brickbuilt too, but it can be tricky as you could loose traction strength and fragilise the capstan. It's just up to you to find what balance you want between playability and modelism. Sometimes a good design is not adapted to a playable ship.

I can encourage you to look around all the excellent designs you can find all around here on the pirate forum and don't forget to look at the Brethren of the brick sea sub forum because great ships can be seen over there too.

[Capitaine Aragon]

Thanks! I will take a look. Would you suggest remodeling the ship to go with a chain anchor?  Should I remodel it to look more like a ship in the Golden Age of piracy?

[Roadmonkeytj]

Are you looking to be historical or just to have fun...  I've used chain on my build but it's a larger ship  ... What he's suggesting is large ships and later ships used chain...  Rope is easy to roll up on the propeller with some additions you can make it look more like a typical capstan... I'm fortunate enough to have prefab anchors but I've seen the approach you used and bar stock used well also seen the large claws used

[Capitaine Aragon]

I think I am going to go for more of a historical look once I get the proper rigging supplies. I am going to try to do rope instead of chains and fix the capstan as I have found a cool build for it instead of using a propeller piece. Thanks for the tip!

[Capitaine Aragon]

I am also going to change the rutter

 on the port of the ship.(brick built) Then, I am going to modify the sails to have some rigging. I am also going to change the main deck to fit the capstan. 

This was my main inspiration for Queen Catherine's Revenge. I am planning to purchase actual haul parts and rigging parts to add to it. I am also planning to purchase actual canons for her.