The worst and funniest ways on how not to anchor!

Nostrodamus said:
There have been some fantastic replies on this thread and it looks like I am not the only one to make cock ups along the way when anchoring.
I did manage to write a blog about anchoring but it did not turn out as I expected.
http://www.cygnus3.com/anchoring-techniques/
Click to expand...

Nostro, this is every bit as good as we expect from you. My particular favourite was from your description of nude Germans practising bending over:

With the older German women the toes are not touched by the fingers but other parts tend to get there first.


Peter
 
Thank you Peter, as I say it wasn't what I intended but was fun. I put a link on the blog to the thread here so hopefully more people will read some of the amazing replies that have been submitted.
 
fisherman said:
Apologies if this has come up already, haven't looked all through.


See the camera angle change as the guy realises what might happen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7pRfix_sNg
Click to expand...

Reminds me of a spectacular failure on a 13000 ton cargo ship I was on.
Berthing alongside in a river somewhere in asia we would drop an anchor and hold with about 20 fathoms of chain out.This would allow the ship to swing on the current and come alongside nicely.Unless the windlass anchor brake failed----------.
Yes,we dumped about a quarter of a mile of chain in the river and could'nt stop it until it slowed to rate that allowed the stopper bar to be thrown across.
 
This story bring a whole new meaning to digging the anchor in .
The best anchoring we seen was some years back in Turkey , charter boat with six Germany guys , some thing we never forget , after trying to anchor for what seen to be hours but was prob 30 mins or so , some Brit shouted out you need to dig the anchor in , one Germany waved back and said thank you , a few mins later an Germany dress in fins and mask holding a child sand spade dive in , no body know what happen down below but the anchor seen to held .
 
We ware anchored at the very end of a long narrow bay. Two bow anchors because the chance that one will be lifted by some nitwit is big.
Charter yacht comes in, makes preparations to anchor just next to us. Daddy at the helm positions the yacht, starts backing to the shore and shouts “ Go” The crew on the bow begins fiddling with the anchor and the remote control. The water is so clear and they are so close I can see the anchor slowly moving down and touching the bottom with the yacht already 10 yards from the shore.
Daughter ( about 18 ) swims land line out, constructs an alien knot. Then swims in the crystal clear water, takes a dive to the anchor, witch is laying on the bottom just a few yards in front of the yacht.
She then shouts at daddy who is checking his instruments ( Important ) that she could see the anchor and putted an empty coke can on the anchor.
Must have been to increase the weight of the anchor.
 
We were sailing slowly into a narrow creek where we wanted to anchor (not too far from Phoenix's nude encounter!). Unusually there were a couple of other boats already there, and since the tide was slack and the wind was perpendicular to the creek, they were lying to the wind, across the creek. We knew that the upwind side was steep, and the lee side was gently sloping, so we decided to go in front of the other boats, sailing very slowly. I was on the bows preparing the anchor, and saw what I thought was a jellyfish just in front of us about a metre below the surface (east coast muddy water, remember). A moment later, and my partner on the helm felt the tiller lock, and I realised that one of the boats was following us, with the woman on board shouting in panic. The jellyfish was the buoy they used to buoy their anchor, with too short a line, and we had caught it on our rudder and tripped their anchor. Anyway, we managed to detach ourselves from them and anchor, they drifted down onto another boat which hung onto them till they could sort themselves out and re-anchor, and we rowed over with a bottle of wine to try to apologise.
 
I appreciate that the question of whether or not to use a tripping buoy with the anchor has been the subject of many discussions in the past and having had a few chuckles over this latest anchor thread, I thought I would share my own recent experience.
This summer, I had the pleasure of motor / sailing my Colvic Watson 31’6, singled handed, from Oban to Campbeltown with the two consecutive tides and a following stiff breeze, assisting, and arrived in the Loch at 2230 to failing light and flagging attention span!
Having had successfully used my new anchor tripping line set up (the one with the block on the anchor buoy and the sliding shackle to maintain the vertical lead for the rope to anchor) on a few occasions this operation should have been second nature……!
That was until the trip line somehow snagged on the anchor cable as I was letting go (mizzen was holding head to the little wind there was). I was just a tad annoyed but surely it would float clear when the weight came on the buoy? It was not to be! Down went the buoy and stayed down. After having paid out the desired scope, I knew my conscience would not allow me to sleep with this tangle, tired as I was, so I heaved the anchor back up just using the windlass. The 10mm chain was retrieving easily until the anchor was just on the waterline when it would come no further. The anchor trip line was caught either in the bow thruster or further aft at the prop or rudder? I caught the lose bight with the boathook but was unable to free the taut rope to the underside. I whammy’d my sheath knife to the boat hook and at full stretch just managed to cut through the rope. Thankfully, anchor home!
You can imagine the turmoil in my head at this stage….fouled propeller, rudder, bow thruster, “Pan Pan” possibly, diver availability in Campbeltown, almost dark…..on my own …. I should have believed what I read in all these worldly wise forums ….etc etc??
To avoid drifting any further, I had no option but to try the propeller and thankfully all seemed to be ok. I made a round turn to the same original location and when I prepared to drop the hook, there was the twisted coiled bight of the tripping line off the bow …….up it came with the boat hook. What a relief! It had come free from wherever.
I dropped the anchor, set her in and sat in the wheelhouse and thought…..what just happened there!!
I suppose this is what experience is all about, good or bad! Now it is very clear in my mind what’s best. Even if it is an expensive new generation anchor….. a tripping line to a buoy is just not worth the grief!
 
I think our most 'interesting' anchoring moment was back in our Wayfarer days-went out from Milford Haven, round to the SE, parked in a little bay and enjoyed the totally windless, sunny day and a picnic sans children together(a rare luxury!).

After that, everything else that happens goes into perspective-
the 19 attempts to pick up a Bealieu River buoy with a flat ring and no proper pick up strop/buoy,and the boot hook released overboard as it caught in the lay of the little tail of rope actually on it and a gust came in, the 'incident at Dielette' when the downstairs throttle locked us out of reverse at the wheel, at the same time as the bow (and only at that point) spring came undone at the inboard end and a gust came down the hill from landward- 'All Hands to Prayer':o PDQ, but nothing harmed in the end but the Skipper & SWMBO's pride, as providing cabaret for the HM, Douniers, and moules cafe patrons/yotties.

Towards home time, a visiting 25ft-ish Cat came motoring along from Tenby way, low on fuel, and scrounged some petrol and berthing advice for Neyland from us. After that, we went to up anchor, a 5kg Bruce+ 20m of 6mm chain. Would it budge:(, would it not, tried hauling short, o/bd motoring and "sailing" it out, you name it- everything in the Manual of Seamanship.

SWMBO getting edgy, as Kids and Grandparents on holiday with us in Dale would be expecting us back by now.
However, a rod charter boat nearby had spotted our evolutions, and when he packed the punters fishing in for the day, came over, attached a stout line to our chain, and tried pulling our anchor out on his windlass.

Still no go, so he slipped his fisherman's ring right down our chain onto the stock, and full astern for about 3 min. Finally, to cheers all round, it broke surface, with a huge gob of stinking black mud round it.

Big Thanks all round, ( took him a bottle next day),he tootled off back into Milford Haven, and we set off home trailing that anchor and mud ball below the bow-got into the harbour mouth, no wind at all now, and ebb starting.
Just off the start of Dale Roads, o\bd fuel runs out(remember our good deed earlier??), so yours truly had a nice mile+ row against the ebb on a hot, sunny evening back, followed by a haul of not the lightest MK2 W up the slipway and into our slot.

Grandparents relieved, Kids indifferent, but would you believe it, there was still black stinking mud stuck on the chain and anchor!! took a lot of prodding and scrubbing before I could stow it back aboard:(
The beach we were anchored off was so lovely and sandy ashore. Always wondered if it was part of a wood from the 'land beneath the sea' of old Welsh folklore.
 
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We must be lucky-it is certainly not skill-as we have only experienced a fouled anchor once.

We visited Skerries, just North of Dublin and dropped the hook in 6 metres, exactly where the Pilot Book and our plotter suggested was the anchorage.

Two nights later it was time to go, leaving at midnight to get the tide.

The windlass tripped its circuit breaker. It had never done that before. I reset it and took our big torch to the bow. First Mate operated the footswitch while I watched.

Sure enough, we had picked up a disused mooring chain-years old by its poor condition. The point of our Delta was wedged into a large joining ring which had deformed oval with the pressure.

It was fortunate that after removing my LJ I was able to lie down alongside the forestay under the furling drum and JUST reach to thread a line through the said chain. After tieing this off to the pulpit and fetching the tip of the anchor a good whack with our large Birmingham Screwdriver the offending chain dropped off.

Phew!
 
In the Balearics, several years ago, I observed an incident that was really comical. It happened at about 2 AM.
There was a cluster of charter yachts whose moorings had broken loose and they were drifting with lots of Italians shouting at each other competing with some Frenchmen doing the same. This cluster was spinning in slow motion and providing morbid interest.
On one of these boats was a guy with ginger hair and beard who got woken up from his slumber because he came on deck wearing pyjamas and rubbing his eyes.
He summed up the situation very quickly and let go his anchor. The drifting stopped. He disappeared below.
But what happened next was even more comical. All the boats let their anchors go, one after the other.
In the morning the shouting resumed because all the anchor chains became entangled.
This hoohah went on for ages.:D
I don't know the exact outcome of all this because we had to leave.
 
I've had a few anchor mishaps over the years - fortunately nothing catastrophic though ...

On a flotilla holiday in Croatia we had a raft of boats all nicely lined up to anchor and alternative boats had shore lines - one of those was ours - nice evening, dinner and went to bed ... we were woken in the early hours by the wind howling through the rigging and I got up to check we were all ok.
As we were rafted and tied to shore we were not free to swing with the wind - this resulted in being broadside to the wind ... not a problem in itself, but 2 boats up was the flot leader boat and they were playing about with a 50' Italian yacht who was sort of alongside them...
One of the Flot crew came across the boats and saw me up - said everything was ok and they were just helping the Italian yacht who had dragged.

Shortly afterwards our shoreline snapped - with the wind howling I couldn't successfully hail across to the Flot boat and they were still playing with their new friends - so I went across to them - to be greated with a "We don't need any help thanks" ... I replied saying that I wasn't offering any help - only to let them know that our shoreline had snapped ... at which point they produced another line, asked me to tie it off on our port quarter and they'd be along to tie it ashore shortly ...
The next morning was a little quieter - and we had moved quite significantly down wind ... more amusing was that there were a few crews who had not even awoken during the night!


Second one was my fault entirely ... out for a winter day "sail" - wanted somewhere nice to stop for lunch in a northerly breeze - ended up going from Chichester through to Southsea and dropped hook just west of the sub-marine barrier ... held fine and we had a nice lunch. However, when it came to raising the anchor we could get the chain taut but nothing more ... tried taut anchor chain and reversing - nothing ... taut anchor chain and forwards - still nothing ... Oops - I knew it was marked as foul ground, but seen enough fishing boats anchored around to think I'd get away with it ...
Ended up dumping most of the chain whilst reversing away from the anchor 180° to the way we set it and it pulled out ... phew! Thank goodness for **** imitation plough anchors!
 
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Laugh No.1. Stop your boat, release your CQR with a mile of chain on top of it, have all the crew walk up to the foredeck to look knowingly into the water and discuss the likelihood that it will hold. Convince themselves it'll probably be OK and more importantly it's time for a G&T. Creases me up every time.
Laugh No.2. Wife on bow, husband on helm shouting instructions. Husband stops boat, wife drops anchor with scope of 1 (cable length = water depth) and husband reverses to discover his anchor is not holding. Husband shouts at wife to up anchor as he's obviously in the wrong spot for good holding. Repeat process for at least 1/2 hour until they either give up or their anchor chances to hold on a rock cleft or your anchor chain. I only laugh if it's not my anchor chain.
Laugh No.3. Daddy on bow and 10 year old child on helm. Daddy pays out scope of 1, tells child to reverse. Child shouts to Daddy so loud that all anchored boats within 1/4 mile can hear that the anchor's dragging because he hasn't done it properly and they want to play on their Xbox.
 
Back in my merchant navy days the ship I was on was bound for Rotterdam, on arrival we were told to anchor until the following day. It was the middle of the night and winter rain was falling steadily as my self and the bosun stood on the forecastle waiting for the the order to let go. Eventually the order came and the anchor was away. We had assertained how many cables the old man wanted out and waited for the ship to pull em' out . Trouble was there was little tide and that was being counter-acted by little wind. So we stood there like a pair of lemons in yellow waterproofs. Couldn't even roll a *** with cold wet fingers. In the end the bosun said'**** this for game of soldiers' stick the windlass in gear and we'll run it out. so thats what we did.
Following day we assembled on the forecastle and began retreving the anchor. Then as the chain was up and down, a great big ball of knotted chain came out the water and stopped at the hawsepipe. Me and the bosun looked at each other and was agreed we would 'say nothing' about running it out on the windlass. We spent half a day trying to prize the knot apart with bars and dropping it to the bottom and retrieving hoping it would fall out but to no avail. Eventually we used strops and bits of rope to make it fast in big loops along the side of the ship before making our way into Rotterdam. A marine engineering firm were called in and the lowered the whole mess onto a small barge where it was all sorted out. No doubt easier without the full wieght of an anchor hanging on it.
Why didn't the captain stick it in reverse and pull out the anchor that way? Well relations between the British crew and Yugoslav deck officers was not good. I think he liked seeing us get cold and wet.
 
Many years ago I was sailing with a friend on his boat, heading into Walton Backwaters (I think it may have been my first visit there). We'd arrived at low water, and had only just enough water as we came inshore from the Pye End approach buoy. However, this did have the advantage, it occurred to us, that we didn't have to do secondary port calculations to work out how much depth to allow, we could just anchor anywhere we could float now.

We sailed up to Hamford Water chose a spot and laid the anchor. Engaged a good burst of astern to dig it in, but it dragged. Hauled up the anchor, using the ancient, very slow, manual winch. Tried again. Same result. Moved to a new spot, tried again. Same result.

There was another boat anchored further up Hamford Water, seemingly successfully, so we headed up there. They had been watching our antics for a while, and as we passed they called over to us and explained that there had been a lot of weed in thick patches that year, and that we weren't the only ones to have difficulty getting the anchor set.

We headed well into the shore again, to get out of the tide, and tried a couple of times more. Finally we'd got the anchor bedded, and rewarded ourselves with the tea and toast we'd long been looking forward to.

Fast forward to the early hours of the next morning. I awoke. It was still dark, and I wondered grumpily why I was awake. It took a long time to realise the berth was sloping slightly, which in turn meant that the boat was heeling slightly, which in turn meant we were aground. This was of course a physical impossibility. Unless you'd failed to allow for the time it had taken, from low water, to get from Pye End into Hamford Water. And the maybe an hour you'd spent trying to anchor. And, because you'd not looked at the tide tables, that the next low tide was lower than the previous.

We continued to heel over until it woke the skipper, then continued to heel some more until it was over the side decks, then continued until it was lapping the cabin windows and finding that they were poorly sealed, and our good humour was expiring fast. At which point it started coming back up again, breakfast was served, and we could reassure ourselves that our resilience and seamanship had got us through yet another challenge the sea had thrown at us. ;)
 
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