Tales from the anchorage.

Irish Rover

Irish Rover

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In the last few years since covid I've noticed a very large increase in the number of motor boats in my marina, mostly in the 8 - 12m range. A lot of the owners seem to have little or no experience. In the marina bowthrusters are constantly whirring, and and as soon as they hit the marina exit it's hammer down and full WOT regardless of other traffic. Two stories.
Last week at my favourite anchorage for swimming a boat came in with a couple onboard and what appeared to be one of their dads. I saw the woman go forward, and direct hubby where to drop the anchor. Depth was 2 - 3 metres. She was giving hand signals - down, down, stop. After a while I noticed the boat had drifted back around 20 metres. They started up, went forward and repeated the anchor dropping procedure with her directing affairs. They drifted back again, and repeated the procedure 4/5 times. I realised she was telling him to stop dropping chain as soon as the anchor touched bottom.
Today in the same anchorage I anchored very close to shore in about 1.5m to give the hulls a scrub. I had around 15m of chain out including the bridle. A 12m boat came later and anchored directly in front and when it settled he was 3/4m forward of my anchor. While I was in the water a 9m boat came and anchored between us and when he settled his stern was around 2/3m from my bow. When I finished my scrubbing I decided to leave as I wasn't comfortable so close to shore with these 2 boats so close. I told Capt 9m I was leaving and asked him to move. He said "can you not reverse a bit and go around me". When I pointed out my chain going directly under his boat he looked at me as if to say "that was a f'ing stupid place to put it". He very reluctantly moved. I went forward a bit and lifted enough to get the bridle off. I then went back to the flybridge to manoeuvre to retrieve the anchor. I obviously had to go forward very close to Capt 12m to lift it. I made sure when arriving to dig it in well because I was so close to shore. He was apoplectic shouting at me and waving his hands. I told him politely to go forward a bit if he wasn't comfortable. He refused shouting, "no you go back". I then ignored him and went forward very close to his stern to free and lift the anchor.
I'm definitely not going there again at the weekend.
 
stop on touch down is new to me, I should try it one day :rolleyes:
had once a fisherman drop his anchor like 40m straight ahead from me at 8m deep or so. I was staying in the anchorage for 4-5 days so had dropped enough chain to be safe no matter the weather (obvs that's with two yellow floating lines to the rocks behind.
Later in the day saw he was struggling couldn't lift his anchor. Turned out his fisherman 4hook thing managed to get one of the hooks inside my Mantus rollbar :) Luckily for him I was about to leave so got my anchor up to waterline he unhooked his anchor and left.

Our only entertainment in anchorages here is charter boats trying to drop enough anchor chain and get the lines to the rocks, yours seems better!

V.
 
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Many powerboat owners believe that more power will solve everything. Well, it doesn’t on the road either. A few years ago we were comfortably berthed in Norderney and had made an acquaintance with a Dutch boat two along on the fingers. One afternoon we watched with some alarm as a German powerboat left another berth and with a moderate wind blowing found himself too near our line. An immoderate application of lots of power caused him to swipe the stern of the Dutch boat, a Bavaria, and partly remove its boarding ladder in the process. The powerboat stopped to sort things out and we later heard that this was his first weekend of ownership. Luckily for him and the Dutch, the ladder merely sheared a retaining bolt and it was soon repaired.
 
Irish Rover said:
...
Today in the same anchorage I anchored very close to shore in about 1.5m to give the hulls a scrub. I had around 15m of chain out including the bridle. A 12m boat came later and anchored directly in front and when it settled he was 3/4m forward of my anchor. While I was in the water a 9m boat came and anchored between us and when he settled his stern was around 2/3m from my bow. When I finished my scrubbing I decided to leave as I wasn't comfortable so close to shore with these 2 boats so close. I told Capt 9m I was leaving and asked him to move. He said "can you not reverse a bit and go around me". When I pointed out my chain going directly under his boat he looked at me as if to say "that was a f'ing stupid place to put it". He very reluctantly moved. I went forward a bit and lifted enough to get the bridle off. I then went back to the flybridge to manoeuvre to retrieve the anchor. I obviously had to go forward very close to Capt 12m to lift it. I made sure when arriving to dig it in well because I was so close to shore. He was apoplectic shouting at me and waving his hands. I told him politely to go forward a bit if he wasn't comfortable. He refused shouting, "no you go back". I then ignored him and went forward very close to his stern to free and lift the anchor.
I'm definitely not going there again at the weekend.
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I think you need an anchor buoy, decorated to look like a WWII mine with detonator trigger spikes!
 
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mjcoon said:
I think you need an anchor buoy, decorated to look like a WWII mine with detonator trigger spikes!
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I agree, I do have an anchor buoy (normal cylindrical variety red with no anchor warnings all around it, circa 12cm dia and 30cm long).
Someone came and dropped a line to hook a 6m open boat on it once... Stopped using it since!
 
Unfortunately not everyone reads and takes courses and learns how to sail before buying a boat.

Unfortunately not everyone has common sense either.

The sea can be a dangerous place so sensible people prepare before embarking upon adventures.
 
capnsensible said:
Forget which island but I do remember a long term cruiser in the Windies had marked his anchor with buoy. Interestingly, a charter boat tried to use it to moor to. Didn't work out too well.
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Which of course is what the suggestion of explosives is meant to deter! I suppose the high-end model would actually produce a bang each time a spike was touched. (Like the nitrogen tri-iodide we played with at school...)
 
An anchorage memory that I still treasure, even though I’ve told it before, is about the occasion off Stone Point where we had spent a night at anchor, and on the following day, a Sunday, a lot more boats arrived. One of them anchored within our swinging range, and after our teenage daughter had failed to get a meaningful reply from then I rowed over. Their reply was “…but we always anchor here on Sundays”, which has become a family saying.
 
johnalison said:
An anchorage memory that I still treasure, even though I’ve told it before, is about the occasion off Stone Point where we had spent a night at anchor, and on the following day, a Sunday, a lot more boats arrived. One of them anchored within our swinging range, and after our teenage daughter had failed to get a meaningful reply from then I rowed over. Their reply was “…but we always anchor here on Sundays”, which has become a family saying.
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Tell them they should get it marked as such on the charts...
 
mjcoon said:
Tell them they should get it marked as such on the charts...
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Unfortunately, Navionics does allow this with community edits so don't even joke about it. It can be quite useful though to see notes from other people who'd anchored. In Carlingford Lough we dropped on someone else's mark who'd helpfully explained it was mud bottom in 7m water right outside the (utterly useless) marina. When we, like them, tried to call the marina we got no response on phone or VHF so their notes were spot on and perfectly matched our experience of the Lough.
 
I was anchored in a well known IOW harbour on Monday. Dozing in the cockpit when I noticed a 26ft yacht drift past heading for a rather rugged wall, his anchor seemed to be hanging strait up and down. I was in about 7ft of water. I hailed him and someone sat up in the cockpit and acknowledged me and his situation. They hauled in the anchor and motored back to the middle of the harbour. They appeared to try re-anchoring several times before going to find a buoy. Maybe the sunny weather persuaded them to try anchoring for the first time. Will they try again?
 
mjcoon said:
I think you need an anchor buoy, decorated to look like a WWII mine with detonator trigger spikes!
Click to expand...
I stopped using anchor buoys years ago after 2 separate occasions occasions when visitors picked it up assuming it was a handy free mooring for them to use.
 
johnalison said:
An anchorage memory that I still treasure, even though I’ve told it before, is about the occasion off Stone Point where we had spent a night at anchor, and on the following day, a Sunday, a lot more boats arrived. One of them anchored within our swinging range, and after our teenage daughter had failed to get a meaningful reply from then I rowed over. Their reply was “…but we always anchor here on Sundays”, which has become a family saying.
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We had been anchored at Stone Point for 24 hours or more. A large old style motor boat anchored down tide, south of us, on the flood on a long rope warp. Husband went off in the dinghy presumably to the office.
As the ebb started they got very close to us.
A posh voice "I say, I think your anchor is dragging, you are getting too close, you will have to move"
I explained that is was unlikely we were dragging up stream and up wind but I was just being stupid.
I moved anyway, let someone else deal with her.
 
Last time we buoyed our anchor in Newtown, it provided entertainment for the seals and then for us as a couple of ribs tried to pick it up thinking it was a mooring.
 
I cannot understand people picking up unknown ‘mooring’ buoys.

Unless they have no common sense or nautical knowledge. Of course such people exist and persist.

It is just plain stupid to be blunt in my h. o.

I would rather use my anchor than an unknown mooring buoy (visitor / waiting moorings are a different thing obviously. I would still stay aboard and monitor obviously).

When I have used anchor buoys I have made sure they are marked and if a twit tried to use it as a mooring I have a loud hailer (in case they do not listen to vhf, and I also always have my fog horn in the cockpit for emergency use).
 
Cerebus said:
I cannot understand people picking up unknown ‘mooring’ buoys.
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I've done it a few times in our previous boat, a Snapdragon 24, so a relative lightweight, but only in good weather when a bit of string would be enough to hold us in place, and only when staying on board, and ready to go at a moment's notice if the owner appeared.

I'd have no objections to someone using my mooring under the same conditions, or for that matter, in a storm. If they break the mooring, it wasn't strong enough for me, either.

Legal disclaimer: anyone using this post or any similar post I've made to justify using my mooring does so strictly at their own risk. :sneaky:
 
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