OldBawley
Active member
Forecast N-NO 7 to 8, Thunderstorm.
In our case that means hiding. We are in a sheltered area, many bays, so I choose one only open to the South. It has a little shop on the beach and free taverna Wlan.
Our main anchor is a big genuine CQR, we do not trust it, would like to buy a Spade or a Bugel but could not find the right one in Turkey or Greece. I like to see and touch something before I buy it, difficult in these parts of the Med.
In Turkey I ordered a Bugel, six months and some frightening dragging disasters later, the ordered spike was still somewhere in Ankara so I understood that the extremely booming Turkish yacht market had no interest in selling a low cost anchor. Turks do not want to be seen in an old or second hand yacht, only glossy new is good and all those ( French ) new toys have anchors when launched. I did see quite a bit of locally copied anchors, most of them not worth the money for the iron. Wrong angles, upside down welded flukes, ( sharp edge on false side of the fluke ) totally wrong proportions etc.
So, still having to cope with the CQR, one adapts. If possible I lay two anchors. Hate it, but sometimes very useful. If for instance some ***** picks up one, the other hook is still down.
So off in the dingy and rowing the second anchor out. In this case I used a sort of fisherman. Have no idea what the make is but extremely good for the hard Med bottom. One minus, the upper fluke sticks out of the seabed and in case of thunderstorm with 360° turning winds fouls the chain of the main anchor.
My choice of the bay was not good. Instead of N No we had puffs of every direction, mainly south, thanks to the high hills surrounding the bay. In the night, we could hear the chain grinding, so I new, we had a chain knot. No problem, untangled it hundreds of times.
And then, in the morning, leaving the warm bed and stepping into my pants, IT happened. Again. My back cracked. There I stood, one leg in the air and could not move any more.
It happens a few times every year, the result of 25 years hard physical labour. In fact, the years after, sitting behind a desk ware worse. It is not a big thing, goes away after a few days but at the moment it hurts like hell. Shuffling through the boat like a question mark, even looking up makes me moan.
By now, the wind started picking up and we ware on a lee shore with tangled anchors. I crawled out of the cabin after putting on the rest of my clothes in a way a three year old does. Moving myself into the dingy was even more painful and difficult after which I untangled main anchor chain and second anchor. This time it was a Houdini nr 3 knot. Rigid dingy with a transom chain roller to pick up the kedge anchor and a lot of practice. Otherwise forget it. Id did it! Had to shout my pain out, but I did it. It is simple, if I don´t do it, nobody will. Anchored 150 meter further to have some room to the shore.
And then, an other particularity of the CQR demonstrated itself. A modern good sized anchor digs in within one yard. The CQR takes looots of yards and is therefore extremely good in picking up deserted moorings which litter the Saronic sea bottom since the Argonauts started yachting. We have a manual SL anchor winch. Real stuff, no plastic, but hardened steal gears. Modified it to take a 8 mm chain gipsy which make it slower but very powerful. Long handle so I can pump it standing up. That is normally, this time I was lifting that piece of ***** from the bottom in double folded position. Again I did it, freeing the half oil drum full of scrap and concrete. Finally managed to find a good spot for the three days of Force 7 and thunderstorms.
Back inside, the wife had lit up the wood stove and helped me changing into dry clothes.
The wind is howling, we are good, can´t even crawl any more. Who wanted to be a cruiser?
In our case that means hiding. We are in a sheltered area, many bays, so I choose one only open to the South. It has a little shop on the beach and free taverna Wlan.
Our main anchor is a big genuine CQR, we do not trust it, would like to buy a Spade or a Bugel but could not find the right one in Turkey or Greece. I like to see and touch something before I buy it, difficult in these parts of the Med.
In Turkey I ordered a Bugel, six months and some frightening dragging disasters later, the ordered spike was still somewhere in Ankara so I understood that the extremely booming Turkish yacht market had no interest in selling a low cost anchor. Turks do not want to be seen in an old or second hand yacht, only glossy new is good and all those ( French ) new toys have anchors when launched. I did see quite a bit of locally copied anchors, most of them not worth the money for the iron. Wrong angles, upside down welded flukes, ( sharp edge on false side of the fluke ) totally wrong proportions etc.
So, still having to cope with the CQR, one adapts. If possible I lay two anchors. Hate it, but sometimes very useful. If for instance some ***** picks up one, the other hook is still down.
So off in the dingy and rowing the second anchor out. In this case I used a sort of fisherman. Have no idea what the make is but extremely good for the hard Med bottom. One minus, the upper fluke sticks out of the seabed and in case of thunderstorm with 360° turning winds fouls the chain of the main anchor.
My choice of the bay was not good. Instead of N No we had puffs of every direction, mainly south, thanks to the high hills surrounding the bay. In the night, we could hear the chain grinding, so I new, we had a chain knot. No problem, untangled it hundreds of times.
And then, in the morning, leaving the warm bed and stepping into my pants, IT happened. Again. My back cracked. There I stood, one leg in the air and could not move any more.
It happens a few times every year, the result of 25 years hard physical labour. In fact, the years after, sitting behind a desk ware worse. It is not a big thing, goes away after a few days but at the moment it hurts like hell. Shuffling through the boat like a question mark, even looking up makes me moan.
By now, the wind started picking up and we ware on a lee shore with tangled anchors. I crawled out of the cabin after putting on the rest of my clothes in a way a three year old does. Moving myself into the dingy was even more painful and difficult after which I untangled main anchor chain and second anchor. This time it was a Houdini nr 3 knot. Rigid dingy with a transom chain roller to pick up the kedge anchor and a lot of practice. Otherwise forget it. Id did it! Had to shout my pain out, but I did it. It is simple, if I don´t do it, nobody will. Anchored 150 meter further to have some room to the shore.
And then, an other particularity of the CQR demonstrated itself. A modern good sized anchor digs in within one yard. The CQR takes looots of yards and is therefore extremely good in picking up deserted moorings which litter the Saronic sea bottom since the Argonauts started yachting. We have a manual SL anchor winch. Real stuff, no plastic, but hardened steal gears. Modified it to take a 8 mm chain gipsy which make it slower but very powerful. Long handle so I can pump it standing up. That is normally, this time I was lifting that piece of ***** from the bottom in double folded position. Again I did it, freeing the half oil drum full of scrap and concrete. Finally managed to find a good spot for the three days of Force 7 and thunderstorms.
Back inside, the wife had lit up the wood stove and helped me changing into dry clothes.
The wind is howling, we are good, can´t even crawl any more. Who wanted to be a cruiser?
