Are you an 'anchor-plonker'?

Bayfly

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Are you an \'anchor-plonker\'?

Dialogue,overheard in an Eastern-Med anchorage,recently..
( blue boat arrives,just after a storm has abated, other boats lie,all on different headings!)..
White Boat: 'Do you know where my anchor is?'
Blue Boat: 'No.
WB:'Neither do I, so clear off!'

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dart

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Re: Are you an \'anchor-plonker\'?

We were anchored at Porto Cervo (Sardinia). A German boat anchored about 1 boat length from us. When we complained he said it was "no problem". An hour later a Spanish boat anchored near him (2 boat lengths away). Can you believe he blew a whistle at the Spanish boat?! We had great fun shouting "no problem" back at him.

My other favourite story was up the Guardiana River. We picked out a free buoy and started to head for it. Meanwhile another boat launched a dingy and the wife rowed furiously over to the buoy and grabbed it. I half expected her to drape a towel over it. No prizes for guessing the nationality.

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dart

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Re: Are you an \'anchor-plonker\'?

Very charitable of you! It was big and yellow with a big ring on top!

(I was dissapointed this thread didn't start a long list of anchoring stories ...)

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jeanne

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Re: Are you an \'anchor-plonker\'?

If it was big and yellow, it wasn't a free visitors buoy. The only visitors moorings in the Guadiana are white. So perhaps it belonged to the lady clutching it so possessively.....some of us do live here.

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dart

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Re: Are you an \'anchor-plonker\'?

Well ok, I can't remember what colour it was but it was definitely a visitor’s buoy. I think it’s a very funny story and fairly typical of how the territorial nature of the human being comes out big time when anchoring.

Any other good stories out there?


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Bayfly

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Re: Are you an \'anchor-plonker\'?

Buoys present a different set of problems- whose is it?.. is it sound?..is it a lobster pot?..etc. What I find intriguing about anchorage behaviour is the way some people take extreme care (as they should!) about where they lay their anchors in relation to boats already there, whereas others just arrive and 'plonk'! In areas where the depth is often around 10m.,and particularly when there's no consistent wind, the calculations are often pretty complex.

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snowleopard

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Re: Are you an \'anchor-plonker\'?

however hard i try i never seem to end up quite where i calculated when i drop the hook. i do however do my best to avoid getting too close to others and occasionally have to have a second go.

when anchored in the crowded deep anchorage at funchal i was a bit nervous about how close i was to the next boat. an hour later a french cat came and plonked himself in the gap. the next day he swung round and knocked a chunk out of our gunwale while we were ashore. he seemed to think it was my fault and refused to move. b******s

i hear that sort of thing is routine in the med.

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ccscott49

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Re: Are you an \'anchor-plonker\'?

It is very typical. Luckily I have monster stainless rubbing strips, so I dont care if they do swing into me really. But I never anchor my boat close to others, they way we swing, could do some serious damage to others. Anyway, who wants to be tucked up with others anyway, if you do, go to a marina. I've never had any problem finding a less crowded anchorage, around the ballearics anyway.

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boatmike

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Re: Are you an \'anchor-plonker\'?

About the only thing I miss about monohull sailing is knowing what the bloody boat will do when the anchor sets. About the only thing I can be sure of with my Prout is that it will point in a completely different direction to everybody else and then proceed to sail around in circles! And YES while I am sociable enough I don't see why every other catamaran in the northern hemisphere sees me anchored and wants to anchor in my cockpit! But then they don't call me Victor Meldrew for nothing.....

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