Has your anchor ever dragged? Tell us.

[snooks]

I've dragged twice that I can remember

Once in NW F7 in Baltimore Harbour...It was forecast, so we tucked ourselves up into the lee of Sherkin Island...It was a charter boat anchor was a dnforth style that seems to come with French boats...Went to the pub, came back in the early hour before the wind got up. We had an anchor watch, and just before I was due to take my turn the boat sheared one way, then back, then back again then didn't shear and just started going backwards into Baltimore harbour in 42 knots. Engine on, anchor up and anchored again, and then kept anchor watch till the wind went down.

Second, up and Dandy Hole (GF liked the pic on the cover of West Country Cruising), went up there on a falling tide for a bit of a challenge got there with lots water to spare. I wanted to go west for shelter from a F7 westerly that was passing over Cornwall. 34 ft boat 35lb CQR, big chain, a couple of time to anchor but we held even in reverse. the wind was funnelling down the river, but not a f7...3 hours before low water, just after lunch a squall with rain came through and we were sheering facing S-SW wind came in from the West just over the top of the hill and we started going backwards. Anchored again after a few attempts, then spent 6 hours waiting for enough water to go to Mayflower marina.

 

[HoratioHB]

Horatio - any chance of explaining that technique in a bit more detail (cos I'm fick and didn't quite comprendez!)

Yup ear goes:

Let out you normal scope and attach you snubber in the normal fashion. THEN let out more chain so it loops down behind the snubber. let out enough to be just less than the depth of water.

Sorry this will probably win the worst ever attempt at posting a sketch in this forum but hopefully you can make it out. The snubber is the darker bit hanging over the bow.

 

[fuss]

.
Forgot to say - yes, I have dragged once - in Puilladobhrain, generally considered a secure anchorage. Problem is it gets so crowded you often can't put a decent scope out. Putting out 15m when anchored in 3-5m may be all very well in theory but you definitely want more out if it blows up and if you are surrounded by other boats you just can't do it.

Boat was a Jeanneau Sunshine (36ft fin keel), anchor was ( If I remember) a CQR and we were on a little over 3-1 all-chain scope. No snubber - I hadn't learnt that very useful trick at that point in my sailing career. The anchor was dug in under engine. The wind got up to 25-30 knots straight in the entrance while we were in the pub and the boat had moved a fair way up the anchorage when we returned, luckily missing other anchored boats. Re-anchored in the dark (not easy in a F7 with lots of other boats around and not much room) and kept an anchor watch for the rest of the night. Luckily no harm was done, but I never leave a boat unattended on a short scope now.

Re. chain snubbers - we always use a 3m length of nylon which takes the snatch out of the chain in gusts and stops noise transmission, but I like the idea of a longer length of nylon with a proper rubber snubber for even greater shock absorption.

- W

Scope is the thing....F7 and 3:1 scope is a problem with or without a snubber.
f9 9:1 scope
f8 8:1
f7 7:1
f6 6:1
f5 5:1
anyway... did i drag ever ... yes, always when I did not have enough scope.
last time was in 12 meters when i put out 40 meters of chain, wind blew up to 25 kts and off we went.
It annoys me because every drag has been my fault and my own bad seamanship.

 

[tcm]

i dragged with 40metres out in very grassy 3mtres of water- saved by someone hooking us to a mooring buoy. I also dragged in 5 mtres with 50 metres out in southern france - ran back to dinghy and got back on just as the police turned up flasing blue lights, ahem, yes officer any problem? Both times well over 30 knots. I dunno if i centred the rudder, but i try to remember to do this every time...

 

[Kukri]

Silly anchor stories

Twice, and both times in the same very silly way, viz, dragging the anchor downhill into much deeper water.

They say history repeats itself as farce.

The first time was when crewing for one of the great names in yachting climbing and exploration when whe anchored (75lb CQR, for the technically minded) on a some lovely thick mud that was of course a glacial terminal moraine and when the katabatic wind decided to blow down the glacier valley later that night (well, it was daylinght, but it was two in the morning) we shot backwards off the moraine and into the middle of the very deep fjord with an awful lot of half inch chain hanging off the bow.

The second time was on a fine Bank Holiday afternoon with the family off Stone Point in Walton Backwaters. The place was heaving and I could just find a vacant spot upriver of the hole, so I dropped just enough to keep us there - and of course dragged off the bank and into the hole. as the ebb set in hard. No harm done except to my dignity.

 

[webcraft]

Scope is the thing....F7 and 3:1 scope is a problem with or without a snubber.
f9 9:1 scope
f8 8:1
f7 7:1
f6 6:1
f5 5:1
anyway... did i drag ever ... yes, always when I did not have enough scope.
last time was in 12 meters when i put out 40 meters of chain, wind blew up to 25 kts and off we went.
It annoys me because every drag has been my fault and my own bad seamanship.

The problem in crowded anchorages is that it may well not be possible to put out enough scope for the conditons. The lifeboat was in Puilladobhrain one night last season when several boats dragged aground. They also escorted one boat out whose skipper preferred to put to sea rather than stay in the madhouse that the anchorage had become.


- W

 

[npf1]

Horaio - thanks for that - got it!

 

[capnsensible]

Yup. But it was in a nice place. Admiralty Bay, Bequia, West Indies. Did wonder when we anchored why the bay was busy except for where we were!

Took about 20 mins at daft o clock to nip across to a different spot to reset.

 

[Tidewaiter2]

AH East Head!

Many moons ago - a 22'er at East Head - Ebb tide, not huge amounts of wind, CQR ~3m chain (!!) and ~20m of line. Nobody on board

Boat was holding fine until a passing dinghy caught the line with his rudder - this set the boat going backwards and I was swimming near the stern with one of my mates.
On noticing the anchored boat behind us getting close my mate swam ashore leaving me to hop on and start the engine - just in time to prevent us from hitting the boat astern! SWMBO then swam out and climbed aboard whilst I continued to motor holding the boat stationery to the ground. Then we reset the anchor and carried on our BBQ .... SWMBO a little black and blue from climbing aboard.

Our memorable one was there- anchored our 20ft Red Fox with 5kg Bruce and 20m 8mm in 5m water, F1/2 Easterly, pal comes up with a Hunter Medina, rafts up, no anchor, another pal comes up with a Dranscombe Coaster, only their 'lunch' grapnel on string, rafts up, all having drinks & nibbles pre bbq ashore- then another pal turns up with an Albin Vega and rafts up without anchoring, despite helpful comments from the rest of us as wind now F2 heading for a 3.
Whole shebang starts heading for HISC at speed- great fun motoring all 4 boats upwind while sorting out anchors, warps, chain- sychronised swimming wasn't in it for spectator value!

 

[BelleSerene]

Our 16kg Delta anchor usually digs in so well, when it returns to the bow roller it is caked in mud.

Our 20kg Rocna (but I won't go there... oops, sorry, I just did) does too. When we occasionally anchor in the outer reaches of the Beaulieu river and Lord Montagu despatches his emissary in the manorial Dory to collect his fiver to which, yes, he is legally entitled by custom pre-dating the law itself, I salve my affronted sense of justice by transporting that pile of mud back to my own river atop my bow, with all the reverence the Vikings might have lent to the figurehead on theirs. Makes me feel I paid for something.

 

[oldfatgit]

Only ever dragged during lunch stops because of weed or lack of scope. Now always dig in with motor if in any doubt. Last time, Stokes Bay, boat bought up sharp and firm, when we came to leave found a 10mm nylon line had fouled anchor, which is what stopped us.

Funniest incidence was Newtown Bay (not the creek this time) heard a grinding and shot like a bolt out of the forehatch to find that we were ok save for another boat which was passing us beam on to the wind with a naked bloke on her stern fending himself off of our boat. His missus didn't see the funny side as I called to SWMBO "Quick dear, there's a naked man out here!".

 

[Thistle]

Twice. First off Corfu. As a newbie sailor didn't know you should dig the anchor in by going astern. Wind whistled down off the mountains during the night and we woke just before we were in range of the Albanian searchlights. Pulling anchor and chain up from deep water is hard work! Spent the rest of the night lying to two anchors

Second, Loch Scresort (Rhum). Last boat in so the best patches of sand were taken. Anchored and dug in hard and seemed to be fine in rising f5. F7+ during the evening saw us slowly cross the loch. Got the engine started but couldn't lift the anchor. Used a sheet winch and eventually found the anchor in the middle of a 1m diameter sphere of weed. Tried again in pretty much the same place and stayed put the rest of the night.

 

[HinewaisMan]

Have dragged a few times over the years, but only once have I been very very worried.

Anchored up in the Santabong River in Borneo – under 20ft of water with 100+ft of chain out and well set (I thought) – a lovely day till a viscous thunderstorm came up the river. Horizontal firehose big drops of rain and 50kts over the deck. Up to the bow to let another 100ft out, but too late – we were moving backwards at speed towards a bamboo fish farm on the shore – and a very nervous looking fish farmer leaning at 45 degrees into the wind staring at our stern getting closer and closer.

Ended up motoring onto the chain to the strain off – thankfully it all passed within 5 mins.

A bigger problem has been other people dragging down on us – Hinewai seems to be a drifting yacht magnet.

Dozing down below one day while on the hook off Kata in Phuket, was woken by 60ft yacht bagging against the hull – thankfully her sides were taller than us so our rubbing strake saved any damage to us, although trying to fend her off so we didn’t tangle rigs was fun. Ended up boarding her with a couple of other yachties and found her anchor rode was rope, not chain, and fully out. The boat was open so we rooted about down below and found a 100ft of heavy warp which we added to the existing rode along with a couple of rolls of old rigging wire as kellets. Did the trick, but I always wonder what they would have thought when they were bringing their anchor in.

Another time, sitting in a bar overlooking Pedi Bay on Symi (lousy holding) we realized a Moorings yacht was quietly drifting back past Hinewai. Into the dinghy and boarded the Moorings boat to let more chain out only to find every inch of chain was already out – with the bitter end of the chain bolted to the locker – with no rope it would have been fun to try and slip that chain in an emergency.

Ended up hanging the Mooring boat off the stern of Hinewai and went back to finish my now warm beer and cold meal – and an hour or so later watched the charters dinghy round and round until they found their yacht, untied her and re-anchored.

 

[Blueboatman]

Yes. But I was anchored in a 'cut' where the tide flowed onto the Bahamas banks riding out a Norther ( what we might term a 30 knot yachtsmans gale) so I think the scouring action of the incoming 3 knot flow simply was removong the sand from over my anchors or the upper sand was loose like stirred up sugar in water.

And heres the point. I had 3 anchors out !
35lb cqr,
30lb Luke ( Fisherman)
30odd pound Danforth...

So all night long I rowed out, pulled each one in turn and reset it further out. The boats stern ( and spade rudder) was 15 feet from the shallow stuff rising sharply, so not a lot of fun, just relentless slow and steady loss of grip all night long and thank goodness for trusty Avon, a dinghy that you really can row out an anchor in..But the cqr with chain was almost impossible to lift and reset due to the weights involved.

Boat was 28 ft fin and spade with moderate freeboard/windage, around 2.5T.

 

[Csail]

On the subject if you look at ship or ferry anchors they really are not that big in relation to what we use so how do they hold?

 

[snowleopard]

One hears stories of being hit by boats dragging whose owners blame the boat being hit. I gather it's not unusual. Anyone had that?

 

[lw395]

On the subject if you look at ship or ferry anchors they really are not that big in relation to what we use so how do they hold?

I think the key difference is that ships are big compared to the waves they anchor in, therefore they are not moving around on the end of the rode.
Ships also have a lot of inertia so the wind does not move them quickly.
Yachts bobbing up and down in any swell impose significant peak loads.

I had a bad experience dragging after the tide turned at Studland. The anchor line than came with the boat floated. (probably trying to save weight when RORC rules impose a minimum size?) and wrapped around the keel, putting the boat across the tide as the ebb built.

I'm now a great believer in hanging a lead weight on the anchor line, say 10m from the boat.
But I can't be bothered with anchoring in Newtown IoW, too crowded at weekends, too many muppets, most of whom will have been drinking. I like to relax with a beer, so I only tend to go for anchoring when there is plenty of space and good holding.

 

[HoratioHB]

One hears stories of being hit by boats dragging whose owners blame the boat being hit. I gather it's not unusual. Anyone had that?

Yup - posted about it a few weeks ago. Some German G*t in Anse D'Arlet Martinique. 0400 he hit our bow and ended up wrapped around our anchor chain. His first words to me in an accusing voice were 'what time did you arrive?' As it was 3 days before him and I pointed out that he had dragged onto me, I was slightly put out to say the least. Not once did he apologise.

 

[Slow_boat]

A boat I was rafted to did, in the Roach last Burnham week.

We had just arrived from the Raysand channel and rafted to his anchor for lunch and watch the races go by. There was a Leisure 23 that came in after us and we ryely watched while the man yelled instructions to the lady on the bow then dragged his anchor. Twice.

After a while we realised that ours was dragging so I cast off and the other boat started to pull his anchor up. As it broke surface there was what appeared to be an ammo box on the end. My immediate reaction was to figure out what caliber ammo, what direction it was pointing then realise how stupid I was being because the it would be inert anyway. Then I realised that the skipper had, in fact, snagged a truck battery and had pulled it up with his anchor. By hand.

It proves that it's not the weight but the design that holds you and that guys from a certain Regiment may be small and wirey but by god, they're strong!

 

[Leighb]

I have once, but not really in the same scheme of things.
We had charterd a yacht on the Norfolk Broads and one evening we anchored in a Broad rather than moored to the bank. The forecast suggested it would blow during the night so we dropped the mud weight as far upwind as we could get and in the lee of some trees.

During the night I was aware of the wind and stuck my head out but it was totally black so I was none the wiser.

Come daylight we found we were over halfway to the leeward shore.

However a couple of other yachts who had anchored nearer the middle were now in the reeds.

We had dragged a good quarter of a mile with no noise or sensation at all.