Veering at Anchor

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rtchina

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When Anchored in windy conditions my AWB with bimini veers all over the place. I have tried to moderate this by dropping a bucket on a warp over the stern (which slows the pace but not the extent) and have been told that I should get a heavier anchor chain. Would using two anchors help the situation? Thanks for any suggestions short of getting a long keeled boat.
 
I seem to remember reading something about this in PBO some years ago. AI think it goes something like this

Swing the boom out to 90 degrees from the boat and hang a bucket on the end. The bucket should hang down under water. Do the same thing on the other side of the boat using the spinnaker pole, then as the boat heels the bucket that is rising will slow the heeling down.

I would be interested to know if it works.
 
panthablue said:
I seem to remember reading something about this in PBO some years ago. AI think it goes something like this

Swing the boom out to 90 degrees from the boat and hang a bucket on the end. The bucket should hang down under water. Do the same thing on the other side of the boat using the spinnaker pole, then as the boat heels the bucket that is rising will slow the heeling down.

I would be interested to know if it works.
Click to expand...

That's to stop rolling at anchor.
 
You are lashing the tiller/ wheel to fix the rudder ?

My boat veers all over the place on its mooring because I dont leave the transom hung rudder on ( if the rudder is on and free to swing its even worse)

Nick Gates ( aka Seanick) has advised me to hang a bucket with the bottom cut out from the stern. Not tried it yet though.
 
You dont say what the boat is. Last week on our mooring I was watching the boats around me in a blow, and one was veering all over the place. It was a lift keel boat with presumably the keel up and it had no lateral resistance worth a damn.

All the other boats, even some mobos, were moving in unison.
 
For what its worth, I find a small grapnel anchor on a short 5 metre chain tossed over the after end damps the movement pretty well.
 
Steadying sail

I have used my steadying sail on one cruise and am encouraged by the results. We only had wind up to F6 but the sail reduces the veering about at anchor to about 5 degrees either side of head to wind. I am hoping that the boat will lie steady to her anchor (or a visitors’ mooring) in a gale and will not snatch so much at the rode. This should be more comfortable and less likely to cause the anchor to drag.

steadying_sail_3_800h.jpg


It also reduces the motion and slapping of waves under the stern because the boat always points into the wavelets in the anchorage.

However, the sail does not hold the boat into a moderate wind if the tide is flowing against the wind; but even in those circumstances she lies more calmly side on to the wind than without the sail.

The area is 2.8 sq m (which is less than half the recommended area for a storm jib for a 33’ yacht); this size was determined by browsing the net to find other users and what worked for their boats and scaling by the relative lengths of the boats. The area seems to be right but I will need to ride out heavy weather to really test it. The ‘luff’ (which becomes the trailing edge next to the backstay) is 3.7m, the leech 2.9m and foot 2.1m. It is completely flat and made to a heavy storm jib specification with 10oz (UK) cloth. It has hanks but I have fitted tape loops between the piston hanks and the backstay so that the main halyard takes most of the load and it also stops the hanks rattling against the backstay. There is a strop from the tack to the based of the backstay. I sheet it with 2 lines to stabilise the ‘clew’ – for this I use the kicking strap tackle and one of the genoa sheets. The mainsheet is moved to the end of its track to keep the boom clear of the steadying sail.

As a gust hits, the sail fills (but stays very flat) and gives to the wind by moving sideways a bit until the boat swings into the new wind direction.

Arun Sails did a good job of making the sail and were also most helpful with advice at the design and specifying stage.

I have fitted some short battens (after the photo was taken) to the leading edge to give it more stability in very windy conditions but have not tried it out yet.
 
I'm about to fit a solar panel to each side of the pushpit mounted just off vertical. I'm hoping they will also act as steadying sails Like John Clarke's sail above. At the moment the sail cover over the boom generates a lot of drive on the mooring in fresh conditions. I reckon the solar panels will counteract this effect. They will be funnelling the breeze because they will follow the shape of the boat at the stern. Similar to the bucket with the bottom cut out in the water trick.
 
Lay two anchors, about 90 degrees apart. It's also called a Bahamian moor, used throughout the Caribbean, since trade winds usually mean 20 - 25 kts all night long, and remain broadly constant in direction.

Two advantages. One, less swinging. Two, when the boat does swing, the jerk at the end of each tack is against an anchor already aligned with the direction of pull - much less likely to be pulled out. And if one does pul out, the other is still there!

Shifting your centre of pressure back with a stern sail works too.

Yet another method is to arrange that the boat is set up with a permanent yaw - by taking your snubber line back aft. Catamarans use wide bridles to hold the anchor line - snubber to one hull, anchor to the other.
 
Actually a Bahamian moor is one anchor up current and one down current and for most of the time you lie to one anchor.

I agree, however, that two anchors sharing the load as described will usually stop yawing as you suggest. Another method, if it's inappropriate to have two anchors down, is to lie to one anchor with your snubber as usual and then let out a lot of chain behind the snubber so you have a large loop dropping all the way to the seabed. This extra weight can often calm a jittery boat.
 
The Bimini is a lot of your problem.

Unlike a steadying sail at the stern or if you are a ketch then the reefed mizzen, a bimini will act like a square rigged sail and once the wind gets to one side it will fill and whizz you round for quite a long way until your boat "luffs up" and the wind gets on the other side and back around you go. We also have solar panels on a gantry behind the bimini which compound the problem.

Even a steadying sail needs to be rigged correctly and my experiences of rigging ours as shown in a poster's photo here has not been met with much success since to be effective ANY sail needs to be attached to something rigid at it's leading edge (Luff) allowing the leech to find it's own position but still be under the control of a sheeting arrangement. To this end, our steadying sail, an old keelboat jib, is run up the backstay and a short length of ally pole with spinnypole end fittings is utilised as a boom, clipped onto the backstay below the sail with it's ends sheeted down to the stern mooring cleats. (Must take a photo but it's usually too rough to launch the dinghy in these circumstances!) This works well BUT NOT WITH THE BIMINI EMPLOYED!

Dropping a stern anchor WILL give a good result but consider what chance you might have of recovering it safely should your bower drag, especially if you are in a bay with limited options to leeward. Lakka on Paxos is like that. It was the location that immediately came to mind when I first read your post! Also, you won't be very popular with the neighbours if they are all swinging to the breeze and you are set rigid like a concrete battleship.

Chas
 
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As a radical suggestion from a catamaran owner who usually sits at anchor like a 'concrete battleship' on a bridle; why not try anchoring by the stern rather than the bow. You could use a bridle from the quarters and my guess would be that your boat wouldn't hunt around neary as much.

Peter.
 
Adonnante said:
As a radical suggestion from a catamaran owner who usually sits at anchor like a 'concrete battleship' on a bridle; why not try anchoring by the stern rather than the bow. You could use a bridle from the quarters and my guess would be that your boat wouldn't hunt around neary as much.

Peter.
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that DOES work with a monohull but most don't do it for lack of a beefy stern anchoring arrangement and if the boat has a sugarscoop stern and the owner(s) sleep in an aft cabin, they will be subject to the "slap, slap, slap," of the sea all night.

Chas
 
CharlesSwallow said:
that DOES work with a monohull but most don't do it for lack of a beefy stern anchoring arrangement and if the boat has a sugarscoop stern and the owner(s) sleep in an aft cabin, they will be subject to the "slap, slap, slap," of the sea all night.
Click to expand...

Good for getting some breeze down into the cabin though. Especially on charter boats with big companionways.

Pete
 
I have a swing keel trailer sailer which swings through about 30-40 degrees either side of central. I think the shape of the hull has more windage at the bow and also acts like a wing so I get 'lift' to one side or the other once the wind is to one side of the bow and 'sail/fly' quite a long way to one side until the pull on the chain is enough to pull the bow through the wind and off I go the other way. You need to give me a wide berth when I'm achored. I have tried fixing the rudder in place putting a bucket over the stern and various other things to stop it but have failed miserably. Makes only a marginal difference. Keel up or down makes no difference. I will have to try the sail idea, or maybe two anchors

In the mean time if you see me anchored watch out! I get to see quite a sweep of the horizon when lazing in the cockpit with a cup of tea. I can watch the world go by, literally, in both directions.
 
neilf39 said:
I have a swing keel trailer sailer which swings through about 30-40 degrees either side of central. I think the shape of the hull has more windage at the bow and also acts like a wing so I get 'lift' to one side or the other once the wind is to one side of the bow and 'sail/fly' quite a long way to one side until the pull on the chain is enough to pull the bow through the wind and off I go the other way. You need to give me a wide berth when I'm achored. I have tried fixing the rudder in place putting a bucket over the stern and various other things to stop it but have failed miserably. Makes only a marginal difference. Keel up or down makes no difference. I will have to try the sail idea, or maybe two anchors

In the mean time if you see me anchored watch out! I get to see quite a sweep of the horizon when lazing in the cockpit with a cup of tea. I can watch the world go by, literally, in both directions.
Click to expand...

I have seen a 30 foot lift keeler on a mooring in a bit of breeze and opposing tide where it would have been impossible to catch the yacht to board from a dinghy.

Perhaps a pair of vertically mounted solar panels mounted fore and aft as I mentioned in message number 12. After reading this thread I think I will make up a couple of plywood replicas of panels and do some experimenting. Howling westerlies in the next few days should be ideal. I naturally expected the panels would have a weather cocking effect, I don't have a Bimini but the main sail cover does give a lot of drive at anchor or on the mooring.
 
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