Has the quality of those out sailing dropped to marine equivalent of camper van sailors

[capnsensible]

A friend of mine has spent many years in the Windies on his 45 ft Jenneau. Often with crew, mostly single handed. And being a fidget ass he has always moved around a lot.

His preferred anchoring technique is to lower the anchor whilst still doing about 2 knots ahead. He lowers it from the helm, remote operated solenoid. When he has put plenty of chain out, engine to neutral, boat does the rest! Seen him do it plenty. He seems to be in, sorted, drink in hand whilst others faff!

 

[geem]

A friend of mine has spent many years in the Windies on his 45 ft Jenneau. Often with crew, mostly single handed. And being a fidget ass he has always moved around a lot.

His preferred anchoring technique is to lower the anchor whilst still doing about 2 knots ahead. He lowers it from the helm, remote operated solenoid. When he has put plenty of chain out, engine to neutral, boat does the rest! Seen him do it plenty. He seems to be in, sorted, drink in hand whilst others faff!

Nothing wrong with that approach. Ensures he does drop chain on his anchor?

 

[capnsensible]

Boat is called 'Summer Breeze'.

 

[Wansworth]

A friend of mine has spent many years in the Windies on his 45 ft Jenneau. Often with crew, mostly single handed. And being a fidget ass he has always moved around a lot.

His preferred anchoring technique is to lower the anchor whilst still doing about 2 knots ahead. He lowers it from the helm, remote operated solenoid. When he has put plenty of chain out, engine to neutral, boat does the rest! Seen him do it plenty. He seems to be in, sorted, drink in hand whilst others faff!

On the coaster I was on the anchour was dropped normally with three shackles over the windlass,then retire for cupper and watch a transit……….approching a bridge to make a handbrake turn was high,y tech drop the anchour if the coaster didn’t swing let out more chain,all quite hectic as windlass Lister had to be started to immediately whip up the anchour as we swung to the tide

 

[Poignard]

A friend of mine has spent many years in the Windies on his 45 ft Jenneau. Often with crew, mostly single handed. And being a fidget ass he has always moved around a lot.

His preferred anchoring technique is to lower the anchor whilst still doing about 2 knots ahead. He lowers it from the helm, remote operated solenoid. When he has put plenty of chain out, engine to neutral, boat does the rest! Seen him do it plenty. He seems to be in, sorted, drink in hand whilst others faff!

Does he give the boat a sheer to avoid the chain scraping along the topside?

 

[Kelpie]

Interesting discussion.
Because we have a (very slow) manual windlass, I generally just lift and lower by hand, paying out the chain. It means I know exactly when it touches the bottom.

We might have to revisit this technique in the Caribbean as there's no way I will be able to keep up with a boat blowing off in 25kts!

 

[capnsensible]

Does he give the boat a sheer to avoid the chain scraping along the topside?

Nope, just goes for it.

Edit to add, seen zillions of merchant ships anchoring in Gib Bay in deep water. They do the same.

 

[jlavery]

Hmm... seem to have drifted into an anchoring thread!

 

[Wansworth]

Hmm... seem to have drifted into an anchoring thread!

No philosophy ?

 

[arc1]

Hmm... seem to have drifted into an anchoring thread!

Need to ask whether those that struggled had paper charts or not - could run all year if it has anchoring and electronic Vs paper nav in the one thread!

 

[capnsensible]

No philosophy ?

Inspired by Vera Shackle though.

 

[geem]

Nope, just goes for it.

Edit to add, seen zillions of merchant ships anchoring in Gib Bay in deep water. They do the same.

A friend who was an officer on a superyacht said his Captain did exactly the same. It avoids fouling your own anchor with the chain.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

A friend who was an officer on a superyacht said his Captain did exactly the same. It avoids fouling your own anchor with the chain.

Compared to my 60 lb CQR, my 40 lb (18kg) Knox prefers to be fast dropped (same boat). The CQR was more likely to set if the drop speed was somewhat controlled and the chain laid out. The Knox however, has not set at least twice when I have controlled the lowering speed, but always sets when I plop it onto the seabed after free fall (usually sticky clay type seabeds). Same boat, same windlass, I have to manually lower by releasing the clutch. The only difference I can see is that the CQR went straight down, but the Knox planes away from the bow with the stock dropping with the chain. I don't know what happens to the Knox as it gets deeper as the gloom hides the anchor, but I assume it finds some balance point as it heads south.

 

[geem]

A friend of mine has spent many years in the Windies on his 45 ft Jenneau. Often with crew, mostly single handed. And being a fidget ass he has always moved around a lot.

His preferred anchoring technique is to lower the anchor whilst still doing about 2 knots ahead. He lowers it from the helm, remote operated solenoid. When he has put plenty of chain out, engine to neutral, boat does the rest! Seen him do it plenty. He seems to be in, sorted, drink in hand whilst others faff!

Yout mate just anchored in front of me.
Rusty Delta anchor. Hope its holds?

 

[Baddox]

Hmm... seem to have drifted into an anchoring thread!

Surely it has been dragged into an anchor thread. Must have started with a CQR for that to happen.

 

[FWB]

Surely it has been dragged into an anchor thread. Must have started with a CQR for that to happen.

No definitely a claw anchor.

 

[Zing]

We have been in the same anchorage for over a week. Mainly because we are kitesurfing here and the conditions are great. The reef behind us is quite visible and well marked on the charts. The Navionics show the reef accurately.
Today a 66ft Oyster went on the reef. Sails up. He sat there with the main up for about 15 mins pushing him further on. A pal who is Captain on a 72ft motor yacht went over to assist and a few ribs including us. The owner of the Oyster was absolutely clueless and even though he was on the reef didn't know where the reef was. Normally we would fasten a powerful boat to a halyard and lean th boat over towards deeper water but there were none about. With four boats and a total of about 80hp plus the Oysters bow thuster, we managed to get it pointing out to deeper water. The skipper used the main engine at full revs buy it wouldn't budge. We gave it a bit more pushing on the bow and it came off.
This boat now makes 4 boats on this well marked reef in a little over 1 week. What is wrong with people? Can they not see the difference in water colour and the fact there is a reef on the chartplotter? The level of incompetent is staggering

I know that reef well. It is marked and very visible in reasonable light, but its edge is incorrectly located on the CMap charts. I too have watched yacht after yacht go on it. I emailed CMap to let them know of their error and got no response. The groundings are not all due to incompetence. There but for the grace of God…

 

[chrishscorp]

There is a difference between those who are incompetent through lack of experience, as may have happened to some of us, and wilful lack of desire to learn combined with an absence of situational awareness. We see a good many of the latter, both sailing happily along with the sails hopelessly wrongly set, and bumbling around in marinas oblivious to the havoc they cause and unapologetic when challenged. They mostly sail undemanding boats, which in the past would have been Centaurs and nowadays BenjeBavs, though I believed that the occaional skilled sailor has owned one or other of these marques. I don't think that the caravan sailors are any commoner now, only that marinas have brought them closer.

Centaur was our first cruiser admittedly 14 years dinghy sailing before that, we have now moved to a Fulmar. I have always felt that you need to have a basic understanding of what you have on board and how it works so you can at least have a go at fixing it and carry a selection of tools to do that.

'the industry view' seems to now be recommending a 40 footer as your first boat, this I guess must be in order to get on board all the goodies you will need for a long weekend, that is a bonkers idea, the prospect of buying a 50, 60 or 65 footer with no experience is frankly terrifying and a man you can hire with a credit card is no use when your 250 miles offshore and the winds getting up.

 

[Wansworth]

oneof the reasons why first timers go for bigger boats is the arcane skills are no longer needed as there are screens to show you where you are,mobile phones to call up the next marina berth and probably they are more confident or they want to attract their girlfriend or wife so need caravan style accomodation.Ormaybe they come from a family that has no tradition in seagoing or indeed any previous contact with the sea and lack the inbuilt prudence and respect for thr sea

 

[Concerto]

oneof the reasons why first timers go for bigger boats is the arcane skills are no longer needed as there are screens to show you where you are,mobile phones to call up the next marina berth and probably they are more confident or they want to attract their girlfriend or wife so need caravan style accomodation.Ormaybe they come from a family that has no tradition in seagoing or indeed any previous contact with the sea and lack the inbuilt prudence and respect for thr sea

40ft+ means you can have cabins with ensuite facilities separate from the living area, a fridge and freezer (or 2), plenty of storage for water and fuel, have generator and watermaker, have a RIB in davits on the transom, power winches, all sails furling (as too heavy to lift), etc, etc, etc. Basically it is like a floating flat or caravan.