Safe anchoring
Powerboat owner Andrew Morton describes his hit and miss experiences with anchors over the years
A powerboater describes his hit and miss experiences with anchors
The nautical term is ‘anchors aweigh’ which, confusingly, means to lift an anchor not to drop one. Subconsciously I must once have misunderstood the phrase because I dropped an anchor of mine. Well, not quite. I just threw it away, in gay abandon: anchors away! But before I tell you that embarrassing story, I’ll recount another, which happened to me over 50 years ago.
When I was a boy of 17 my father owned an old RAF launch which had been lifted from the bottom of the River Leven, the one which runs out of Loch Lomond. With the help of a local mechanic and a John Brown’s carpenter, we refurbished the boat and called it Winkle.
We kept it on Loch Lomond for a few years, and my father was generous enough to allow me to motor out on my own, or with friends, which I loved.
One summer weekend I set off with two
pals to cruise up the loch, camp overnight, and return the following day. We had a great time, cruising north on Saturday, and dropping anchor well up the loch where it was over 150m deep.
The trick in those days was to run the boat gently onto the beach, unload the tent, food etc, and then take the boat back off shore, drop anchor and swim back to the shore. That was my job – not something I’d dream of doing these days!
We pitched the tent, had a hot meal on the beach and went to bed before midnight. As night fell, the wind rose from a westerly direction, as it often does, blowing offshore. It increased considerably and woke me at about 0200 with the tent flapping and the guy ropes straining.
I looked out the tent door and discovered to my horror that Winkle had disappeared. Panic. What to do? We were near the main road which runs down the west side of the loch, so I woke the others, and told them I was going to get a lift back home to Alexandria to break the news to my parents. Oh dear.
Thumbing a lift in those days, even in the middle of the night, was remarkably easy – how things have changed.
I arrived home at 0500, woke up my parents and told them the sorry tale. My father was totally calm, bless him, and predicted all would be well.
‘The boat anchor has lost its grip because the sides of the loch are steep-shelving north of Luss, whereas the east side of the loch is not so bad.’
So, he predicted the boat would be safely anchored on the east side of the loch, and he was proved absolutely right.
We drove up the east side early that morning, towing a trailer and wooden dinghy, and found the boat eventually, happily at anchor without a care in the world. We launched the dinghy and rowed out to it without much difficulty. Then I motored back to the west side of the loch and picked up my school chums who were waiting patiently for events to unfold.
I couldn’t afford to buy my own motorboat when I was a young man, and we weren’t all that keen on sailing, although we did eventually buy a Silhouette. Instead, I bought a kayak, and spent the following 50 years kayaking, and kayak racing.
When I semi-retired, and had some time and money to spare, I bought a motorboat and am now the proud owner of Tiptoe, a 25ft Finnmaster, along with kayak rack and racing kayak. Now I spend a few weeks every summer exploring the west coast of Scotland, with folding bike and kayak – an absolute delight.
Tiptoe has an electric windlass and a Bruce anchor at the bow. The windlass is a brilliant piece of kit for solo sailing, and for an old man weighing just 9 stone with not so much strength left in his arms, or his back for that matter.
Being cautious, I also bought a lighter Danforth anchor as a spare – that’s a kedge anchor I suppose, although I’ve never used it for kedging. I have to admit now, that I lost the first one.
Anchor’s away
How was that, you ask? Dead simple, I threw it overboard to anchor without tying the other end to the boat. The line, instead of paying out properly as planned, snagged, whipped the loose end out of my other hand, and the whole lot just disappeared into the water in seconds.
Lesson learned: tie the other end to the boat before you drop the anchor overboard. So elementary – I’m deeply embarrassed.
The phantom hold
More recently, I had a repeat of the Winkle story. This year I was anchored in Loch Leven, by Glencoe, and had a bite to eat, followed by a good sleep in a beautifully quiet corner of the loch. But I awoke the next morning in a different spot! Oh dear. Overnight, the wind had risen, and Tiptoe had dragged her anchor off one side of the loch, and drifted gently to the other side, where the anchor caught again no bother, just as Winkle’s had done all those years ago. The difference this time, was not in the topography of bottom, but in the nature of the substrate. I had anchored on an area covered in weed, and the Bruce anchor had slithered across the top of the weed without catching. When I first anchored, I had stayed put for a good two hours without a problem, because there was not a breath of wind. So that was hardly surprising, but I had been careless in my choice of anchorage.
‘Lesson learned: tie the end of the warp to the boat before you drop the anchor overboard’