Active Anchoring

[belizesailor]

Reading some of the multitude of anchoring threads, particularly discussions of effectivness of chain cantenary, made me think of a related topic which I've dubbed "active anchoring". Many of the anchoring discussions, and anchor tests, assume "passive" anchoring...meaning no action taken by those aboard the vessel other than to sit and hope they don't drag.

"Active" anchoring I'm defining as taking action to avoid dragging. Specifically what I do is that if I suspect a strong squall is eminent I get up and start the engines. If winds increase to about 30 knots I engage the engines and use them to hold the bow into the wind and take some load off the rode.

I've also used this technique to allow the boat to drag slowly, but check the drag rate so it does not build momentum, and allow the hook to reset successfully.

A couple of precursors to this: if I suspect serious or sustained unstable weather then I go find a nice mangrove hole to hide in and sleep much better. I set an anchor alarm with the radius relatively short (for example, usually 65' even if I am on 200' of rode). My rational is that if the boat moves significantly, even if it is just a swing, then that could signal an approaching squall or other significant change...so I want to know. If weather starts degrading, I sleep in the cockpit or the main salon where maintaining anchor watch is easy and I can be at the helm quickly.

I'm interested in how many practice "active" versus "passive" anchoring and what other strategies/tactics they use.

[ElGatoGordo]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

I'm interested in how many practice "active" versus "passive" anchoring and what other strategies/tactics they use.

My experience level is extremely low in this regard, maybe 20 nights on the hook. But I always get up about every 2 hours in settled weather, every hour or less in unsettled, to check position. And I use an anchor watch in Open CPN and/or my phone depending on the paranoia level.

Perhaps I'll get more comfortable? So far I've never even thought about sleep until I was VERY comfortable that I wasn't going to drag...usually a few hours.

[djmarchand]

Probably the most common "active anchoring" practice is to let out scope when the wind builds. Usually the wind will stay from the same quadrant if it is high, so you can be fairly sure of no swinging problem.

I let out from 5:1 to 7 or 8:1 when the wind gets up above 20 kts.

[JPA Cate]

First, find a spot where you will have enough room to swing. Then, SET THE HOOK, make sure you give it a prolonged steady pull, finish veering out the chain [we use at least 3:1, all chain] attach snubber, and then back down hard, again [for us this is at 2200 rpm using our folding prop].

If expecting a lot stronger wind, lay out more scope initially (to claim the territory) , and then veer out some more if you need it.

We have not had to use the engine to hold us from dragging but once in our cruising time, when the chain jammed in the hawse while we were trying to lay it out. If we were having significant trouble holding (actually dragging after re-anchoring), we would put out our second anchor (only a 20# HT Danforth, but it packs a lot of holding power, ~ 30 ft. 3/8" chain backed by nylon three strand rode) and we do it like a "Y" where the boat is the stem of the "V" part of the "Y". The two anchors are not in tandem, though we have seen this done. So far, the combination of the 60 lb. Manson Supreme and the old Danforth has proved adequate in sustained 55-60 kn during a frontal passage followed by strong winds. Above that, we might have to use the engine. It is not an early option that we use, although were pleased to motor to windward in flat water into 55. We have another spare anchor, have never had to use it.

In the daytime we keep watch pretty much all the time till we're sure we're set. At night, if nervous, set the anchor watch on the GPS. A sudden large wind increase will wake us.

These techniques have served well from the West coast of California and Mexico, through French Polynesia, the Cooks, Fifi, New Caledonia, Vanuatu the Solomonsj, and where we've been in Australia. However, I think we'd need more strings to our bow in Europe for Med mooring (see Double Whiskey's thread), and for rocky high latitude places.

Ann

[wingless]

The Fortress FX-37 I use on my boat was selected because their Selection Guide states to use one or two sizes larger than recommended for storm conditions. I went two sizes larger than recommended.

This has been a very good choice, buring itself plus tens of feet of rode, into the bottom during storm conditions. The only downside is waiting for the anchor and rode to release from the planet using my windlass to pull the nose of my boat down as the anchor increments up to the surface after a storm.

My practice is to use 10:1 scope for maximum holding power and a snubber line w/ chain hook to take the load off the windlass and eliminate shock from my all-chain rode.

These publications are handy for anchoring, Safe Anchoring Guide and Surviving a Storm at Anchor.

My best results are to use the bow foot switches instead of the helm switch when deploying the anchor, because I like to observe the rode play out as the wind / current moves the boat away from the anchor, instead of dropping tens of feet of chain rode into a pile on top of the anchor.

When I am setting the anchor I use my engines w/ a sustained pull to drive the anchor into the planet.

My all-chain rode is marked w/ the (in)famous wingless trinary color code chain marking system to permit a visual observation to confirm the deployed rode length. (Please send $10 to my Paypal account if adopting this chain marking system).

[Greenhand]

We tried using a system like that on your trailer sailor. Neither of us could remember what the colors meant, then the thread that I used to whip the colors in the anchor rode faded.

[colemj]

We differ a bit on this than you.

First, we try never to get into an "active anchoring" situation (I'm sure you do also!). We have left anchorages because we didn't like the bottom or were not comfortable with swing room, etc. However, often times this is unavoidable.

If the bottom is good, we set the anchor very hard and check to make sure it is set well in good substrate. And we trust our anchor (won't tell here which anchor we have because that will derail the thread quickly). To be honest, if this point is met, we sleep right through winds up to 30kts because we know from experience we will not move an inch.

Over 30kts, the wind noise usually wakes us. By us, I mean Michele, who then wakes me and makes me check things so that she knows everything is OK. I already know everything is OK and being wakened annoys me. She could do this herself, but she is too busy sleeping while I do it. She then gets annoyed when I wake her to tell her everything is OK. Since we have both been mutually annoyed by being awakened for no reason, we call it a draw. I don't understand this, but it makes sense in her world...

Uh, where was I? Oh yes - the engine. When things get really rough, I turn on the engines but have yet to need to put them in gear. The engines are on solely for options - particularly if there are a lot of boats in the anchorage, and specifically if they are French charter boats

Here, I think people make a mistake. I have watched many boats put their engines in gear and try to dynamically help the anchor by taking force off the rode. In all cases, I have watched them rubber-band back and forth on the rode - with the bow falling significantly off the wind when the rode is slack, and the rode coming up bar tight when the boat falls back on it. Only to reinforce the helmsman's idea that he needs to use the engines to take the slack off the rode.

We have sat right beside boats that rubber-band up and down using their engines during strong blows and every time we discuss the weather afterwards, they are convinced they sat perfectly still and straight on their rodes while taking the major strain off the rode - while I have watched them move up and down their rodes 30-40' and falling off the wind and snatching back up hard. In a few of the cases, the boats have broken free of their anchor, and I am convinced it was because of the dynamics they imposed on their situation with the engine.

If predicted bad weather, then we hide like you. Again, if the bottom is good and the anchor is well set, then we sleep. We have never set an anchor alarm, and somehow naturally seem to become fully awake if the boat swings 90* or more in a shift. Other than situationally being in the cockpit or cabin for checking things out, we have not spent any nights specifically on anchor watch.

We have been in some pretty bad anchorages with winds at 40kts (not counting random short-term squalls with higher winds), but have learned to trust our anchor gear and anchoring technique. This is easier in places where you can see your anchor set while standing on the bow. It isn't so easy to trust when in opaque water with unknown bottom.

Mark

[Pelagic]

Totally agree with Colemj’s analysis….. Set your anchor well and trust (but verify) holding in a serious blow…
Do not induce added momentum by trying to hold position with engine in a storm

Added tips:
1...Look for a natural indentation on the chart and anchor in such a way that you must drag uphill
2...If anchoring in a slurry type bottom, .....in strong winds....a 2nd anchor lowered on a very short scope, will inhibit your hunting around so as to cause a “break away shear”

[Andrew Troup]

I have run the engine occasionally, leaving it idling in neutral, in situations where ANY drag would require immediate response, probably due to dangers to leeward, or where the engine was not a guaranteed, immediate-start proposition, or was unable to develop full thrust immediately and reliably without warming.

I can remember a few occasions when a small minority of the williwaws reaching the boat were maybe 20-30% stronger than the prevailing maximum. In such cases, if the system is already near the limit, I have had good results from applying forward thrust DURING the gust, but tapering off as the gust did, so there is no issue with surge or recoil.

[Andrew Troup]

Some excellent points in a number of posts above: I would only add:

When dropping a second anchor underfoot, (which in special cases can be an excellent idea, for several reasons), one problem is that it makes for a much longer period of (potentially problematic) retrieval if the escape option becomes necessary.

I can only surmise that's why the skipper of Mirabella V did not choose this option, with the result that he nearly wrecked the world's biggest sloop.

What some people might want to consider doing when a certain subset of tricky situations are expected, is this:

Drop the second anchor, back away a few meters and drop a SMALL pile of chain right under the bow, (ideally bundled, and lashed with 'rotten cotton'), to act as a temporary kellet, which will revert to anchor chain if it becomes necessary to set the anchor.

Now use a bit more rotten cotton to tie that second chain to the bow fitting where it comes aboard. This time it needs to be weak enough to definitely break before an (unset) anchor will move.

Then build a BIG pile of chain on the foredeck where it will pay out fairly, enough to give it sufficient scope to hold, but a bit less chain than the #1 anchor.

Otherwise #2 might get a nasty surprise ! (woof woof).

This means that anchor #2 will only set itself if and when required.


This setup is a particularly good option if you're a VERY heavy sleeper.

It will reliably alert you to EITHER a windshift, or a drag.

Especially if you sleep forrard.

It's also a good option if you are singlehanded. Maybe you have to take some lines ashore, and you would prefer the yacht to stick around if things get nasty in the meantime.

Or maybe the thought of wrestling two possibly intertwined chain rodes does not appeal, unless and until the situation strictly calls for it.

So this, I suppose, is not exactly an "active" strategy, it has a certain passivity once it's done.

Perhaps more of a "pre-emptive, keeping options open" strategy.

- - - -

Those who prefer tech solutions will be rolling their eyes.
"That's what anchor alarms are for"

I prefer not to stake everything on hundreds of commodity-quality components (fuses, batteries, connectors, surface-mount devices, boards etc) and the attention to minute detail of those who designed, built and installed them.

These (individually tiny) risks compound, by virtue of being in a serial chain, and they are unknowable.

I'm also one of the happy few who loved loud music and shooting in my youth, so I don't hear electronic alarms, unless both they and I are angled 'just so'.

The standard "tech-happy" response will also put no value in the facts that this solution is not only all ready to go, but will actually self-deploy.

Which I happen to think is a particularly good thing · if · several · bad · things · happen · at · once.

[Terra Nova]

OP--It sounds like your "active anchoring" is actually just a knee-jerk reaction from dealing with woefully inadequate anchoring gear and/or technique. Perhaps your anchor and rode are too light for your boat? Style of anchor not matched to bottom conditions? Too short a catenary? Not enough chain?

[Sos]

Originally Posted by colemj

Over 30kts, the wind noise usually wakes us. By us, I mean Michele, who then wakes me and makes me check things so that she knows everything is OK. I already know everything is OK and being wakened annoys me. She could do this herself, but she is too busy sleeping while I do it. She then gets annoyed when I wake her to tell her everything is OK. Since we have both been mutually annoyed by being awakened for no reason, we call it a draw. I don't understand this, but it makes sense in her world...

Andrew,

The auto set anchor would be also be good if you were away from the boat and it started dragging!

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by Sos

Andrew,

The auto set anchor would be also be good if you were away from the boat and it started dragging!

Indeed. That was what I had in mind when I mentioned

<< Maybe you have to take some lines ashore, and you would prefer the yacht to stick around if things get nasty in the meantime. >>

I did hear of a couple who had the opposite of an auto-set anchoring system. Unbeknownst to them, salt water had infiltrated the foredeck footswitch for the windlass on their charter yacht. They had been told to use the isolating switch at the main distribution panel, but (according to them) this had not been backed up with any memorable reason, so they promptly forgot all about it.

Finding an idyllic anchorage on a small, uninhabited island in the Aegean, they anchored in a gentle offshore breeze, and swam ashore through the limpid, crystalline water, and made out at the high tide line, like newlyweds.

In their defence, it has to be said they were newly wed.

Things went a bit downhill when she said "Darling, what's that noise" and he said "Don't worry dearest, you'll get used to it, all the others did"

Not for the obvious reason though; it turned out that the funny noise was the yacht's auto-un-anchoring system going through its baptismal paces.

[Blue Crab]

My old Wharram cat went on a dragabout one nice breezy afternoon years ago when I was on a grocery run. It was retrieved by a kindly powerboater with my embarrassment being the only damage done.

I have routinely (and actively) set two anchors ever since and now, with the addition of a new gen anchor, I'll experiment with Capt Troup's Auto Set technique. I'm guessing that I'll be very uncomfortable without that second anchor deployed but we shall see.

Edit: "Finding an idyllic anchorage on a small, uninhabited island in the Aegean, they anchored in a gentle offshore breeze, and swam ashore through the limpid, crystalline water, and made out at the high tide line, like newlyweds."

The above scene was captured on a smartphone video by a passing tourist, sold to a major studio via YouToob, and was subsequently made into From Here To Eternity starring Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. Frank Sinatra too. But it wasn't a three-way.

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by Terra Nova

OP--It sounds like your "active anchoring" is actually just a knee-jerk reaction from dealing with woefully inadequate anchoring gear and/or technique. Perhaps your anchor and rode are too light for your boat? Style of anchor not matched to bottom conditions? Too short a catenary? Not enough chain?

Did you catch Boatie's riff a week or two back, on the futility of pretending that we can prepare for all contingencies, and the delusion dating mainly from the onset of the www, that if anything happens requiring unusual measures, it's an indication we weren't prepared?

He portrayed long-distance sailing as a process of making do, where the unsatisfactory goes into regular battle with the unexpected.

OK, he's a delivery skipper, but I've taken my turn at anchor watch in the cockpit of several boats with two of the best prepared "own boat" skippers of modern times.

On the first occasion, I wasn't proactive or "knee jerk" enough one night to suit my successor, who woke the skipper. We ran 24 hr anchor watches for the entire time (3 days) we were at that island. There were always enough crew left aboard to move the boat if need be, get offshore, heave to, and come back in for the rest of us when conditions permitted.

It was an open roadstead anchorage, and it was safe where we were (although the swell was up to 3m, it was benign) but the surf inshore of us was up to 6m at times, and the wind was expected to clock around to a quarter from which we would become exposed to wind waves on top of that swell, so active anchoring was exactly the right sort.


And before anyone reading this says "Yes, but I bet these stories involve Old school anchors": on the occasion I just described, the CQR anchor held just fine. We never did have to move.
Active anchoring includes Pro-active anchoring.

The same anchor held the same boat just fine in a much tougher location, years later, in the nearest thing to an overnight anchorage on the main Antipodes island, with indifferent holding. It's not a great anchorage, but it's the best within about 36 hours sailing (at 200 mpd) in any direction.

That time, we had the engine running all night, and I know the anchor held perfectly because we also ran the radar all night. When we arrived, the wind was blowing through the gap between the islands, alongside our anchorage (as estimated by a different skipper - a professional with a Southern Ocean ticket, who normally runs fishing trawlers down in those waters) at a steady 90 knots, gusting 100+

The anchor was small by modern cruising standards, 110 lb CQR for a 78' , 55 tonne boat with a 110' mast, but the chain was 16mm.

(I might be wrong about the size: it was certainly 110lb under the first skipper, but at that time the boat was in racing trim and displaced 'only' 38 tonnes. No bow roller, let alone a windlass, hence the 'trim' anchor)

On another of the occasions I'm thinking of, it was a New school anchor, a NEW New school anchor, freshly designed and built by the skipper.

His faith in his anchors is unquenchable.
Some would say he raises faith in his anchors to an art form.
Some would say his customers do too.

And he anchors with the same punctilious attention to detail and degree of deliberation as a fussy cat looking for a place to sh*t.
You would think the chances of dragging were minuscule.

But nevertheless, he and I took turns, all night, sitting in the cockpit with a hand bearing compass, with the main engine ready to roll at a moment's notice.

A few days later, having been ashore to climb part way up a mountain, we came back down to find the yacht in a slightly different location to where we had left in that morning. He had been confident enough in the set to leave the yacht untended, with us hours away by foot.

ALL anchors can drag, perfect anchorages are always oversubscribed and (at least where I come from) always overseas, and ALL sailors can occasionally fail to demonstrate perfect foresight.

Perfect hindsight, however, is in plentiful supply.