A Wild Night in Scotland
We powered the length of mountainous Loch Glencoul in Scotland through numerous lobster floats and, with considerable care and a bow watch, picked our way through a narrow rock-strewn channel into Loch Beag. We anchored in flat water at the head of the loch with the wind funneling down the glen in front of us and holding us off the boulder-strewn shoreline. We spent the day exploring the majestic glen and then settled in for a quiet night. It turned pitch black. The wind veered 180 degrees and rose to gale force, driving a heavy rain up the loch. We were swinging uncomfortably close to a dangerous lee shore with nasty seas rapidly building as the wind blasted straight down the 3-mile-long loch. We had to get out in conditions where I could not see the bow of the boat clearly, let alone the numerous hazards that faced us. We booted up the chart plotter, zoomed in on the track saved from the way in, gave a crew member the miserable position of bow watch, positioned Terrie alongside the cockpit to relay messages back and forth, hauled up the anchor, and powered slowly into the short, sharp seas. I kept us glued to our entry track. It carried us through the narrow, twisting passage between the rocks at the mouth of Loch Beag, past all the lobster traps, and back to the head of Loch Glencoul, where once again the wind was coming off the shoreline and we were in calm, protected waters. In the early hours of the morning we re-anchored and took to our beds. Without the exit plan and saved inbound track, we would have been in serious, potentially boat-threatening, trouble. high tide, with a float attached to it. Should the anchor get fouled, heaving on the trip line will almost always break it loose.
If a trip line is used, it is attached to the anchor and then thrown out, together with its buoy, immediately before the anchor is let go. To avoid a tangle, you must ensure that the trip line has a fair lead through the bow roller and not around a stanchion.
While some people routinely use trip lines, we almost never do, considering them more trouble than they are worth most of the time. In practice, we have never had an anchor we could not retrieve without a trip line, although we have struggled mightily on a couple of occasions and wished we had one. (And on the one occasion when our rode abraded through and we lost the anchor, we would have been able to recover it with a trip line.) In a crowded anchorage it is sometimes worth adding a trip line and float simply to indicate where the anchor is so that other cruisers do not foul it when anchoring.
How Much Rode?
The general rule when anchoring is that with chain, the length of the rode (its scope) should be five times the distance from the bow of the boat to the seabed at the highest anticipated tide level. With nylon, the ratio is 7:1. In extreme conditions, these ratios may be increased to 7:1 and 10:1, respectively. In calm conditions they can be reduced, especially if lying to an all-chain rode in relatively deep water.
There are two key pieces of information here that are commonly ignored: the height above the water of the bow and the effect of the tide. Let’s assume the depth sounder is reading the actual depth and not the depth under the keel. We have 15 feet of water. The bow is 6 feet above the water. We are at mid-tide in an area with a 10-foot tide. If using an all-chain rode, in normal circumstances we need to let out 5 × (15 + 6 + 5) = 130 feet of chain; with a nylon rode this increases to 182 feet.
Rodes need marking in some fashion so you can tell, both in the daylight and at night, how much is being let out. However, too many markers can be confusing. Every 25 feet is adequate. With chain, we use colored wire ties. These break off in time, but are easy to replace. What is needed is some easy-to-remember scheme such as (1) red = 25 feet; (2) red = 50 feet; (3) red = 75 feet; (1) white = 100 feet; and so on. Changing the color periodically is useful; if you lose track of what is going on, or a couple of ties are missing, the color change will put you back in the ballpark. There are a variety of markers available for rope rodes.
Setting More Than One Anchor
It is not uncommon to set two anchors, and there are good reasons for doing so, such as in the following circumstances:
• THE HOLDING IS POOR
• A BIG BLOW IS EXPECTED
• TO HOLD THE BOAT OFF A HAZARD IF THE WIND SHIFTS
• TO KEEP THE BOAT MORE OR LESS IN ONE SPOT Where the holding is poor or a big blow is expected, the anchors
should be set fairly close to one another. I like to place them about 30 degrees apart. The first is set in the usual fashion, and then the boat is motored forward at the appropriate angle until alongside the first anchor, at which point the second is let go. This is easier said than done since it is very hard to judge just where that first anchor is. If you go too far you risk dislodging the first from its set, and if you don’t go far enough, you could end up with too little scope on the second.
I like to use a rope rode on the first anchor (with a length of chain at the anchor) and our chain (primary) rode on the second anchor. As we motor forward to drop the second anchor, I leave the first rode cleated off but pull in the slack by hand and let it pile up on deck, maintaining a little tension on the line. At some point, the rode stops coming in and I have to start letting it out again. I know now that I am more or less alongside the first anchor. What’s more, by maintaining a little tension on the first rode while motoring forward, I ensure that we do not foul it in the propeller.
We keep going forward a little more, letting out the rode to the first anchor to give ourselves some dragging room with the second anchor, and then come to a stop and drop the second anchor. As we fall back, I let the rode to the first anchor run back out, snubbing up the second anchor before the first rode comes taut. This way I can ensure that the second anchor is also well set.
It may be that we are anchored off a beach close enough inshore that if the wind shifts we are going to end up on the beach. In this case, the second anchor will be set in such a way as to hold us off the beach. This may be well out to one side or it may be dead astern.
Retrieving (Weighing) An Anchor
Anchor retrieval is normally straightforward, but whomever is on the wheel will not be able to see which way the rode is lying, so it helps to have someone in the bow giving hand signals. Terrie and I simply point in the direction the rode is lying, moving our hand down to point at the water as the boat comes up over the anchor. The retrieval process then goes something like this:
If the dinghy is being towed astern, we shorten its painter so it can’t foul the propeller. If the forehatch is open, we close it to clear the decks for action.
One of us motors slowly forward while the other either stands on the windlass button to retrieve a chain rode or hauls in the slack on a nylon rode, periodically pointing in the direction of the remaining rode. It is important not to overrun the rode, particularly a nylon rode, because then it might foul the propeller or rudder. If necessary, the motor is periodically put in neutral to slow the pace.
When the rode is more or less in a vertical position, we engage neutral. If it is a nylon rode we are retrieving, then we take a couple of turns around the warping drum on the windlass.
We motor the boat slowly forward against the direction in which the anchor was set. Most times this will break it loose, at which point we put the engine into neutral while we recover the
remaining rode and the anchor. The head of the boat will slowly blow off downwind, causing the anchor to stream away from the boat so that it does not foul the topsides as it breaks the surface of the water.
Frequently, a chain rode comes up extremely muddy. It’s nice to have a washdown pump to hose down the chain as it comes up to the bow roller. Failing this, most mud will be dislodged before the chain breaks the surface of the water if you periodically stamp up and down on the length of chain between the bow roller and the windlass, causing the chain to jump up and down. If the chain comes out of the water still muddy, you can drop the muddy section down to the waterline and repeat the process. Whatever residual mud ends up on deck should be sluiced down with a bucket of water before it has a chance to dry.
If we have two anchors set, we bring in the most awkward first. In our case, this is the one with a nylon rode. We get it stowed and its rode tidied away before bringing in the second anchor. If anchored to a Bahamian moor, you will want to ease out the rode on the anchor that is taking the load until the boat is over the other anchor, which is then recovered. After this, you motor forward to recover the remaining anchor.
Sometimes when lying to two anchors the boat will turn through a circle and twist the rodes together. It is often not easy to disentangle them. It greatly simplifies things if you can undo the bitter end of one rode from the boat and unwind it from the other rode.
What if an anchor doesn’t break loose? Very often, letting a little rode back out and then motoring around in a circle with the rode under tension will dislodge the set. Other times, the anchor has hooked another anchor chain, in which case the anchor will have to be hauled to the surface and the other chain lifted off (taking care not to break the other anchor loose). If necessary, feed a line around the chain that has been fouled and cleat this line. Slack your anchor rode until your anchor falls free of the chain it has fouled, and then release one end of the line you have set to hold up this chain. At this point the chain will drop back to the bottom.
If an anchor won’t break loose and there is any wave action, the rode can be brought to the vertical position and then tightened as the bow drops into the trough of a wave. The next wave crest should jerk the anchor lose. However, note that if the anchor fails to move, you can impart tremendous shock loads to the ground tackle, the bow roller, the windlass, and associated hardware.
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