The Art Of Anchoring

Book Extract

“Of all the things you do with your cruising boat, picking a suitable place to anchor (and anchoring correctly) is more important for the success (and continuity) of your cruising career than any other.”
Ross Norgrove, The Cruising Life.

“She’s DRAGGING!” The cry echoed across the anchorage as we lounged on the beach, enjoying the sunset. The wind was funnelling through the California cove at a steady 12 knots. Nothing to worry about, so we had dropped the anchor rathercasually, paid out some nylon rode, and rowed ashore for the club party, which was in full swing. There was adequate swinging room. Nothing could possibly go wrong...

Suddenly John leapt to his feet. “It’s us,” he cried. We dashed down to the inflatable dinghy, fell head-over-heels into her, and rowed frantically toward the slowly drifting Chabuka. A few yards from the rocks, I quickly turned the ignition key as John and the skipper on a neighboring boat, who had shouted the warning, hauled in the line at the bow. Fortunately, the diesel came to life at once. Our Good Samaritan pointed out a better spot closer inshore with a good, sandy bottom and plenty of swinging room. I let go a sigh of relief as we snubbed the anchor hard into the sand and paid out plenty of scope—more than last time. It had been a close call. A minute later and we’d have been on the rocks.

“Lucky I glanced up at the right moment,” our neighbor said, as we settled down in the cockpit with a glass of wine. “There’s grass on the bottom here. Your anchor slides across the top unless you dig it in hard, and even then it can be tricky.” As I refilled his glass, I made a mental note never to be careless about anchoring again.

Quiet resolutions are all very well, but they are easily broken. A few months later, in another, larger yacht, we sailed into a picturesque port on the island of Eubeia off the eastern mainland Greece. We were anxious to eat ashore in a taverna on the water front, so we anchored in 15 feet of water, comfortably off the shallows—or so I thought. The retsina was superb, the food satisfying. “Are you sure you have enough scope out?” my wife asked as we turned in. “Sure,” I said casually. Three hours later, I felt a slight bump and heard wind thrumming in the rigging. To my horror, we had dragged into the shallows and were firmly aground in a rising onshore breeze. When we pulled on the anchor, it came straight home. It took three hours of backbreaking work to pull ourselves off. Only when we tied several lines together and secured them to a lamp post on a nearby pier were we able to haul her off with two sheet winches and the windlass. Thankfully, we anchored in deeper water. At dawn, the wind came in from the north at 40 knots and we were weatherbound for three days. I think the gods were smiling at my carelessness that night. Ever since then, I have taken anchoring pretty seriously.

Nothing is worse for one’s ego than having anchoring problems. Over the years, I have had more than my share of them—usually in front of a fascinated, and sometimes amused, audience. Indeed, one of the truisms of cruising is that it is far easier to make a passage than to stay in one place. Of all the skills you need, none is more important than the art of anchoring. None is surrounded with more arcane jargon and (often) pseudoscience. Yet good anchoring practice is among the most satisfying of all seamanship skills. Some of my most vivid cruising memories are of anchorages and anchoring, of sitting in the cockpit with friends enjoying a sunset or watching fish rise in the quiet of a summer’s evening.

I remember anchoring far inside the Florida Keys in a shallow draft 34-footer, lying in 3 feet of water, the hectic world of Miami and the Keys almost on another planet, the only sound the gentle ripple of wavelets against the plywood hull. Then there’s the satisfaction of setting the anchor in deep, of lying quietly in a 35-knot wind, the boat swinging in the shifting wind, the anchor rode flexing in the gusts, of knowing you're going to stay put. Of course, there are the dramas, too, the moments when you anchor and anchor again and nothing goes right, when your neighbors drag down on you in the small hours and life becomes a chaotic symphony of wet chain and muddy foredecks. In truth, however, such dramas are far and few between, provided you obey a few elementary rules and take the trouble to gain experience of anchors and anchoring. Anyone can become an anchoring afficiando, provided one’s prepared to learn the hard way, by doing it oneself.

This book is about seamanship and good judgement, about anchoring as an art, not a science. I believe that safe anchoring is a matter of seamanlike preparation, careful routine, and good, old-fashioned observation and common sense. While such factors enter into the equation, this is not a treatise heavy on anchor weights, catenaries, and all the other technical esoterica that appear at regular intervals in the pages of yachting journals. Staying Put looks at the basics and tries to strip away much of the irrelevant mumbo-jumbo surrounding anchors and anchoring. It’s a book designed to be read and then applied, a snort, as British humorist P.G. Wodehouse once called it “between the solid orgies,” orgies of solid, practical experience. If we help you enjoy your anchoring and to stay put even in very rough conditions, then our job is done.

Why such a mystique about anchoring? Much of it comes from the days of sail, and the time, not too long ago, when cruising yachts had unreliable engines. Our predecessors sailed with monumentally heavy ground tackle, which they handled with consummate skill. They had to: their anchors were much less efficient for their weight. They also used their ground tackle to move their boats across harbors and to accomplish all sorts of other tasks for which we just turn a key today. I vividly remember helping warp a 17-ton, deep draft 43-footer with a long Victorian bowsprit through the Dutch canals in my youth.

The blisters from hours of hauling and towing were with me for days. It was backbreaking work, but the maneuvers weperformed with spring lines, blocks, and tackles were miracles in the hands of an ex-naval officer who had learnt his sailing infull-rigged ships. Sadly, such seamanship standards have deteriorated in these days of the reliable diesel. More’s the pity. Our congested anchorages cry out for good seamanship.

SOME BASIC PHILOSOPHY
I think that anchoring becomes much easier if you approach it with a coherent philosophy at the back of your mind. My ex-naval mentor was a harsh taskmaster, who had learned his seamanship in a brutal school using technology little changed over many centuries. His philosophy was simple and to the point, and as relevant today as when he learned it in the early years of this century:

• Careful preparation is the secret of successful anchoring.
• Well-established routines make all the difference.
• Common sense and careful observation are essential.

I once saw a marvelous demonstration of the first two principles in St. Lucia. A black-hulled gaff-rigged cutter sailed into Anse des Pitons that evening. The anchorage was crowded, but there were still a few spaces along the beach. The husband and wife crew hove-to close offshore. We watched them start the engine, lower sail, range chain on deck, ease the anchor to the waterline. The dinghy was brought alongside, and a long warp was led from the stern to the boat. Then the skipper went slow ahead. He rounded offshore while his wife stood ready at the windlass. “Drop,” we heard. The anchor splashed over the bow. The yacht coursed slowly astern. As she eased to a stop, the skipper hopped in the dinghy and rowed the stern line ashore. Almost before the beach boys knew it, he had tied the line to a palm tree. His wife hauled it in, and they were secured stern-to close inshore. The whole operation was so perfectly executed that we were tempted to applaud.

This couple had made all preparations and were ready for any eventuality. They also had a familiar routine for everything, a routine that freed them to worry about congestion, crosswinds, and other last-minute variables. Both husband and wife knew exactly what each should do, and when. They had practiced everything time and time again.

You can learn preparations and routines from a book, but old-fashioned common sense and acute observation can come only from hard-won experience. I will never forget sailing down the north coast of Santa Cruz Island, California, on a windy spring day with an elderly friend in his 35-footer. It was blowing merry hell from the west out of a clear sky. We were practically surfing, the wind gusting over 50 knots. “Let’s anchor in Fry’s Harbor,” I yelled against the wind. The waters of the anchorage seemed calm compared with the turbulent whitecaps offshore. “No way,” said the skipper. “Look at the kelp! It’s blowing out of the water. Fry’s is untenable when the seaweed’s dancing.” We ended up in Channel Islands Harbor 30 miles away after a very bumpy sail. Years later, I happened to be in Fry’s when the wind blew 50 knots. We had to leave in a hurry. The kelp was dancing and a steep swell ran into the anchorage. My friend’s acute observation was accurate.

Let’s make an immediate distinction between common sense and fine-tuned observations. The difference is elementary, but often obscured in a mass of cautionary tales and technical admonitions. Common sense is using your eyes and other peoples’ experience to make decisions. For example, you enter a sheltered cover and find that two other yachts have anchored under a cliff on the north side. They are close together, when, to the casual onlooker, they could have set their anchors on each side of the anchorage. Common sense dictates that you ask why they are so close together. Unless they are close friends, there is probably a good reason, like, for instance, the dark shadow of a submerged rock that appears straight ahead as you ease your way into the south side of the bay.

Observation is an art that can take years to cultivate, and can really be classified under that magical term “experience.”Sometimes it is called “local knowledge,” words guaranteed to terrorize the innocent neophyte. You think immediately of crusty old salts leaning against a convenient rail, talking wisely about westerlies, fog, and ebb tides. Or you meet someone in the yacht club bar who smiles mysteriously when you ask about the counter-current that appears to set against the prevailing winds close inshore. Both images engender deep feelings of inadequacy and inexperience. Take heart! You can acquire as much, if not better, knowledge by cultivating your powers of observation. Local knowledge is, after all, merely a reservoir of practical information acquired over a long (or short) period of time. A century ago, many fishermen and experienced commercial sailors were illiterate. They learned their craft, their weather lore from years of hard-won experience based on acute observation. And this mind set of careful observation was inculcated into them from the moment they first went to sea.

Observation is a mind set—remember these words, dear reader, as you venture forth to anchor for the first time. This mind set involves looking at the sea and the land—not just as a view, but as a source of valuable information. Try sailing to windward in smooth water with an expert skipper at the helm, someone who has sailed locally for many years. Notice that his or her eye is constantly to windward, looking for telltale dark patches on the water, for inconspicuous riffles that signal a gust or a favorable wind shift. Meanwhile, your skipper plays the wind, never letting his or her powers of observation wander. His or her mind set concentrates on getting to windward as fast as possible, making use of all the inconspicuous landmarks and signs learned over years of sailing the same waters. Exactly the same mind set applies to anchoring, for it turns anchoring from a science into the art that it is.

It is this quality of careful observation that separates the anchoring artist and seaman from the novice. “How did she decide to anchor there?” you ask in impressive amazement, as the skipper chooses the perfect place in the sheltered bay, placing the yacht in just the right place to enjoy a cooling wind at night. Ten to one that he or she quietly watched the gentle gusts that darkened the water while the crew ranged the rode ondeck. 

Observation while anchoring comes into fullest play while selecting the anchorage. It is a matter of choosing the most sheltered cove or portion of an anchorage by consulting the chart and comparing what it tells you with the topography of the surrounding land. It is observing the behavior of yachts already anchored at your destination. How do they swing to the wind? Are they heeling to sudden gusts or lying to two anchors? Is everyone anchored to one side of the anchorage to avoid a tidal stream sluicing through the middle? There are many other such observations of this nature. They come from practical experience gained from using a wide variety of anchorages in an infinite variety of weather conditions. There is only one way to acquire such experience—by going out and anchoring for yourself.

LEARNING ANCHORING
Watching an anchoring maestro at work might tempt you to believe that acquiring the basic skills is difficult. Far from it. The basic routines and rules are easily learned if you make a systematic attempt to do so. Begin by shipping out with an experienced cruising skipper on a cruise when you know the boat will be anchoring several times a day, perhaps for lunch as well as overnight. Ask specifically for anchor handling experience, and try to work alongside an experienced foredeck hand who has the patience to take you through the routines and show you the little tricks that make all the difference. Once you have helped a few times, ask if you can do all the work, with your mentor watching and advising. The basic principles you learned in your reading will come alive, literally in your hands.

Once the foredeck is familiar territory, graduate to the cockpit, and ask the skipper to explain his reasoning while conning the ship into a new anchorage. Why anchor where we did? Why two anchors? What about the best depth? What did you learn from watching the water or from observing the other yachts in the anchorage? You will learn more by watching and asking questions than you will in any number of readings of this or any other book on anchoring.

When you have learned as much as you can from watching and asking questions, arrange to be the skipper for a couple of anchoring drills. The captain may stand by you, itching to’grab the helm, but let his or her hoary head acquire a few more gray hairs! It’s the only way you'll learn!

When your apprenticeship is over, go off on your own without anyone to help you out of trouble. Once you have taken the psychological plunge, practiced a few times in deserted bays, and anchored a couple of times in more crowded coves, you ll be well on your way to acquiring as rich an experience as any of the experts.

A final word of warning before we enter the world of anchors, rodes, and anchoring procedure. You can learn the basic rules of anchoring, the procedures for setting and recovering anchors, in a few hours. The rest is sheer, sometimes hard-won experience, and you should realize from the beginning that you will make mistakes and often when you first set off on your own. But every mistake, every hectic drama that creates a melange of anchor lines on the foredeck, separates you from those who have never anchored on their own. No part of cruising, whether under power or sail requires so much of you, is so intolerant of mistakes. The art of anchoring, and it is an art, is a matter of experience, and still more experience. Then, one day, you'll suddenly realize that you’ve tamed the beast, that you’ve acquired a level of confidence and experience that will always be there for you.

When I was sixteen, my ex-naval mentor handed me the helm as we felt our way into a tiny, rock-girt cove in western Sweden. “Anchor her,” he said quietly, as we shortened sail. There was no diesel close to hand, only a tan genoa carrying us before the evening wind. A moment of sheer terror, my mind froze. Then, miraculously, the routine came into mind, hours of hard work hauling and sweating, watching others anchoring in seemingly inaccessible places. I swung the boat into the wind, let her fall back, called out “let go” in as authoritative a voice as I could muster. We snubbed in, paid out chain, and came to a stop. Hardly to my surprise, I realized I was gripping the tiller with whitened fingers. “Well done,” said my mentor, as he clapped me on the back. The magic, the satisfaction, of that moment is with me still.

Welcome to the deeply satisfying world of anchoring!

 

Taken from Staying Put! by Brian Fagan.

© Not to be reproduced without written permission from Fernhurst Books Limited.