halb
Well-Known Member
I'm currently at anchor in Cawsand Bay, loverly calm sea and being entertained by another yacht attempting to anchor, as I write this 12 attempts have been made in different areas amongst the already anchored vessels.
Anchor wally
- Thread starter halb
- Start date
Kelpie
Well-Known Member
Go on then... what sort of anchor??
Poecheng
Well-Known Member
Rope or chain?
Jabs
Well-Known Member
laika
Well-Known Member
Maybe the skipper is sick or incapacitated. Maybe she or he has just sailed single handed awake 24 hours straight. Maybe, hey, they're inexperienced and just learning. This is a forum where we help people less experienced in certain areas and get help from others more experienced. Let's keep mocking in the lounge.
Last edited:
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
That Garrick-Maidment chap can be pretty elusive, can't he? Have they tried using a small diving flag as a target marker?
Jabs
Well-Known Member
Amen.
Let's try to get more positive thinking on the various threads!
Great points!
Tony
Blue Sunray
Well-Known Member
johnalison
Well-Known Member
I much prefer to learn from watching others struggle to being the object of attention myself. I don't think we have ever taken more than three goes at laying an anchor, so 14 sounds excessive. At least the use of an electric winch makes such an exercise feasible. A few weeks ago we spent a very happy half-hour watching a pig-headed Dutchman trying to enter a box mooring. There was a moderate cross-wind and he was determined to enter stern first. His rather scruffy old boat had quite a strong prop-walk, but he never managed to work out how the forces balanced, and even with a couple of crew helping, the end result was quite messy.
RichardS
N/A
We anchored at a bay on Ilovik in Croatia last month and arrived during daylight around 4:00pm. There were a lot of large rocky outcrops on the bottom and even in 7m of water I could immediately see that one side of the fluke was under a rock and that we would need to pull the anchor in a specific direction the following morning.
Just as it was going dark, a charter boat came in and anchored just inshore of us. By then we had finished dinner and were sitting out on deck enjoying the sunset so a little spectator sport was an added bonus. As the boat started to pull back on its anchor we could see that it was going to lie close to another sailing boat. Not disasterously close as a very calm night was forecast (correctly) but the charterer decided to retrieve the anchor and try again. However the anchor was jammed and as they tried to pull it up the windlass sounded as if it was above to expire. I said to SWMBO that they should give up, let more scope out, and wait until morning (presumably their original intention) when the anchor would be clearly visible.
They then tried to drive over the anchor at hight speed and there was an enormous bang like a gunshot. It sounded as if they had snapped the chain lock or something. This seemed to be confirmed when they put a nice thick snubber line on and reversed quickly against the snubber line. This parted with another enormous bang and one end whipped into the water whilst the other whipped across the foredeck. Luckily it didn't chop anyone in half.
By now it was getting too dark to see what was going on. SWMBO asked whether I should go over to help and perhaps I should but by then another dinghy had gone over to do the same. The answer to me had been obvious from an hour earlier but if they were determined to raise the anchor I couldn't offer and advice other than keep trying different angles which is what they were doing.
About an hour later we heard their engine revs increase and they motored out of the bay in total darkness with their lights on. I've no idea whether they raised the anchor but, if so, where we they now headed at 11:00 at night? Perhaps they had terminally broken the windlass or had even dropped the anchor and chain and were now headed back to the home marina.
Next morning I reversed over my chain as the windlass pulled it in. The crew looked over the bow as the anchor appeared from under the boat and the chain simply reversed the fluke out from under the rock. In daylight everything is so much simpler.
Richard
Just as it was going dark, a charter boat came in and anchored just inshore of us. By then we had finished dinner and were sitting out on deck enjoying the sunset so a little spectator sport was an added bonus. As the boat started to pull back on its anchor we could see that it was going to lie close to another sailing boat. Not disasterously close as a very calm night was forecast (correctly) but the charterer decided to retrieve the anchor and try again. However the anchor was jammed and as they tried to pull it up the windlass sounded as if it was above to expire. I said to SWMBO that they should give up, let more scope out, and wait until morning (presumably their original intention) when the anchor would be clearly visible.
They then tried to drive over the anchor at hight speed and there was an enormous bang like a gunshot. It sounded as if they had snapped the chain lock or something. This seemed to be confirmed when they put a nice thick snubber line on and reversed quickly against the snubber line. This parted with another enormous bang and one end whipped into the water whilst the other whipped across the foredeck. Luckily it didn't chop anyone in half.
By now it was getting too dark to see what was going on. SWMBO asked whether I should go over to help and perhaps I should but by then another dinghy had gone over to do the same. The answer to me had been obvious from an hour earlier but if they were determined to raise the anchor I couldn't offer and advice other than keep trying different angles which is what they were doing.
About an hour later we heard their engine revs increase and they motored out of the bay in total darkness with their lights on. I've no idea whether they raised the anchor but, if so, where we they now headed at 11:00 at night? Perhaps they had terminally broken the windlass or had even dropped the anchor and chain and were now headed back to the home marina.
Next morning I reversed over my chain as the windlass pulled it in. The crew looked over the bow as the anchor appeared from under the boat and the chain simply reversed the fluke out from under the rock. In daylight everything is so much simpler.
Richard
pmagowan
Well-Known Member
Mt grandfather had to healp a scout leader (who had no scouts on board due to the wise precautions of their parents) and his wife who had not managed to anchor for 3 days! They just kept going because they had no idea what to do. When they entered the bay my grandmother had commented on how shiney their anchor was and that they must be very pernickety people. They later found out that the man thought that you simply let the anchor out until it touched the bottom and no more. He had been polishing it on the seabed ever since he had set out trying to get it to work. My grandfather rowed across and anchored them so that they could collapse from exhaustion!
I leave people to their own devices most of the time because everyone has different ways of doing things but if someone looks like they really need help then I offer it. The rewards often involve craic and drink, both of which I an fond.
I leave people to their own devices most of the time because everyone has different ways of doing things but if someone looks like they really need help then I offer it. The rewards often involve craic and drink, both of which I an fond.
Perhaps it was an instructor allowing a boatload of trainees to each try their hand. Sometimes, repeated, badly executed manoeuvres can be put down to this. It can seem perfectly normal to the people on the sailing school boat, but mystifying or comical to those watching.
aslabend
Well-Known Member
Sailor's mantra - there but for the grace of god........
After two failed attempts outside Newton creek the other day I finally found that, under all the weed and muck, a stone of just the right size had wedged into the flukes of my Guardian.
After two failed attempts outside Newton creek the other day I finally found that, under all the weed and muck, a stone of just the right size had wedged into the flukes of my Guardian.
johnalison
Well-Known Member
When we started cruising in er 1972, I was very confident about my sailing abilities but was not clued up about cruising. One thing I worried about was how to anchor? All the books told you everything you didn't want to know about the breaking strain of the chain and the scope to be put out, but none of them told you how to achieve transition from anchor on board and boat moving, to anchor stuck on the bottom and boat stationary. As usual, Des Sleightholme had the answer in a book which I think is just called Cruising, or Cruising under Sail, but this only came out after we had used trial and error for a few years. There was hardly anyone around to watch in those days, so my reputation locally is still fairly high.
jordanbasset
Well-Known Member
Not quite the same thing but since having our new to us boat I have found on a couple of occasions having to relay my anchor. My old Kobra 2 seemed to set first time everytime, but my current Delta struggles to get through weed and am sure some one watching may find it appears as if I do not know what I am doing. Especially when I build slowly upto 2,000 plus rpm to dig it in.
I could do of course what many others do in the area. drop the anchor, let it drift back a bit, nudge the chain with my foot and leave it.
I could do of course what many others do in the area. drop the anchor, let it drift back a bit, nudge the chain with my foot and leave it.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
I once saw a sea school boat from NW England make eight bad attempts to come up to the pontoon at Kirkcudbright. Mind you, the instructor was at the helm throughout ... not used to 4kt tides along the berth, I think.
Quandary
Well-Known Member
The first time we visited Canna in our Sigma 33, we tried for over an hour to get our anchor to bite, it was dusk and raining and we could not see where the patches of weed were on the bottom, it was a gusty day, we were already very tired and hungry and the more we tried the more it slid. My son and I were getting very angry with each other. The standard OOD anchor was a 15 lb. CQR and we had been using it frequently usually for anchoring after regattas etc. and it had held okay in Tob. the night before, the kedge on a Sigma 33 was a small (7lb?) Bruce so in desperation we tried it, it bit first time. Since then I have always tried to be sympathetic to anyone who has difficulty getting their anchor dug in.
oldbilbo
...
Just to add to the stew....
I'd shared the OP's gentle incredulity at 'the antics' from the vantage point of his cockpit, securely hooked-up opposite the clock tower at Kingsand ( outside Plymouth ), and well after all good little yotties should be abed. But it was a warm and gentle night, and the bottle of spiced rum had our appreciative attention.
So also did the ~27' gaffer which motored in, selected a likely spot among the 20-odd other anchored boats there, and proceded to stop, lower an 'ook, rattle out some chain, then gather some sternway while more chain was rattled out. Except that the sternway increased and increased until he was doing - by best estimates - nearly 4 knots!
The boat would come to a halt, we'd guess ( hope? ) the anchor had bit deeply, then he'd slowly motor forward again to where he'd dropped the pick, and try again. Every 2 or 3 failed attempts, using EXACTLY the same technique, he'd motor round to somewhere else, then try again....exactly as before. He ranged up, he ranged down, he tried under the steep banks on the south side, he came back to where he'd started....
And each time he applied the same 'Full Steam Astern' while the anchor hopped and skipped. Sure, if he'd come reasonably close, we'd have offered such thoughts as seemed appropriate. Cawsand Bay is mostly 'fS' and known as a good, reliable anchorage, in generally 4 metres of good holding. He just needed some patience.
What had us in fits of giggles - aided and abetted by the spiced rum - was the observation that the boat, its occupants and the situation was exactly like a classic Mike Peyton cartoon.... with the dark sky, the darker water, the black silhouettes of the boat and its two crew, one forward and one aft..... we could almost SEE the large white eyes!
Eventually, they headed off half a mile to the north and stopped by Sandway Point, where the bottom is rocky. An 'ook dropped there is bound to hook something immoveable. They were there in the morning. We didn't have the heart to wake 'em as we motored past....
I'd shared the OP's gentle incredulity at 'the antics' from the vantage point of his cockpit, securely hooked-up opposite the clock tower at Kingsand ( outside Plymouth ), and well after all good little yotties should be abed. But it was a warm and gentle night, and the bottle of spiced rum had our appreciative attention.
So also did the ~27' gaffer which motored in, selected a likely spot among the 20-odd other anchored boats there, and proceded to stop, lower an 'ook, rattle out some chain, then gather some sternway while more chain was rattled out. Except that the sternway increased and increased until he was doing - by best estimates - nearly 4 knots!
The boat would come to a halt, we'd guess ( hope? ) the anchor had bit deeply, then he'd slowly motor forward again to where he'd dropped the pick, and try again. Every 2 or 3 failed attempts, using EXACTLY the same technique, he'd motor round to somewhere else, then try again....exactly as before. He ranged up, he ranged down, he tried under the steep banks on the south side, he came back to where he'd started....
And each time he applied the same 'Full Steam Astern' while the anchor hopped and skipped. Sure, if he'd come reasonably close, we'd have offered such thoughts as seemed appropriate. Cawsand Bay is mostly 'fS' and known as a good, reliable anchorage, in generally 4 metres of good holding. He just needed some patience.
What had us in fits of giggles - aided and abetted by the spiced rum - was the observation that the boat, its occupants and the situation was exactly like a classic Mike Peyton cartoon.... with the dark sky, the darker water, the black silhouettes of the boat and its two crew, one forward and one aft..... we could almost SEE the large white eyes!
Eventually, they headed off half a mile to the north and stopped by Sandway Point, where the bottom is rocky. An 'ook dropped there is bound to hook something immoveable. They were there in the morning. We didn't have the heart to wake 'em as we motored past....
Hadenough
Well-Known Member
Oh arrh!
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
I hope that, in Peyton tradition, the boat had an appropriate name like "Happy Hooker" or "Drag Race" or "Dig in the Beguine".
