Anchor dragging by night, 45 knots wind, 1.5 m waves, between 3 boats and the beach

[Alan Mighty]

I was in a marina just a few miles E of Kriskro's anchorage that night.

It was just a nasty affair. At my marina, the wind peaked at 59 knots from the S around 19 hours local. With time of high tide v close to the period of peak gusts (semidiurnal tide regime; the max range that day Sunday 11 Feb was 1.5 m but the range up to the 1854 high was 0.9 m and the range from that high to the Monday low was 1.1 m).

The Tangalooma anchorage is clean sand. Tidal current can be close to 3 knots in spring tides, so how a boat sits depends on the boat and which of wind and tide is stronger. CQR anchors work okay. Rocna and similar work better. I've not used a Bruce there (or anywhere else).

Getting into and out of the anchorage in poor conditions is not always easy. Entry and exit for a keel yacht is at the S of the anchorage and requires a little piloting (lights in line). Once outside the anchorage, you're faced with a shipping channel. Which can be busy at times.

With luck a chartlet will be attached below.

In my marina, I lost some boat canvas (ripped, not blown away). One vessel broke its docklines. A few other boats with minor damage (boat canvas, gear blown overboard etc).

The Bureau of Met does a fair job of storm prediction, but getting the predictions requires monitoring their website and their weather radar. A lightning strike from that storm disabled the main weather radar for several hours (but after the gusts had peaked).

From my own perspective, I had monitored the weather radar. But was confident that the dangerous cell inside the storm front was going to miss me. I was wrong.

I can add that I don't particularly like the Tangalooma anchorage. If I was going to be on that coast, I would have been at the Sandhills (where the tidal current is close to nil so you sit only to the wind as a rule) or Lucinda Bay. But neither of those two anchorages has any protection from W. And in the t-storm cells you cannot always be sure that you will not get a burst from W. Tangalooma, because of the wrecks and the sandbar, does have some protection from W (at the Sandhills, I'd either try to sit out a W burst or weigh anchor and look for protection at Mud Island).

Thunderstorm season is like that. Plenty of opportunity to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And not easy to know where the right place is.

[boatman61]

That's why I like Claw type anchors.. they gather bulk and weight as they dig in.. the CQR is great for fine to medium weather but above that it just plows a furrow.
A Blugel is basically a Bruce with a rollbar..

[zeehag]

you did gud.
may i also suggest a nice heavy original bruce anchor. mine is divine. easily found less pricily as most folks are converting to the newest of snake oil treatments known as 3000 usd anchors. i found mine from a person who was upgrading and disposing of the bruce. best purchase ever. not expensive, and perfect holding. anything good enough for oil rigs is good enough for my boat.
technique. only takes practice.
for the record i have only once in my sailing life, 1955 to present time, dragged anchor only once in my own boat, a few times in a friends in gom. oops. his boat had not enough chain for the anchor, a too light cqr, to hold well. he had only 30 ft of 3/8 chain. where we dragged in that boat was freshly dredged and hardpan bottom.
when i dragged with my cqr, it was due to chain falling into a dredged channel, pulling anchor with it. then i had to drive boat as did you. motoring out into deeper water with anchor deployed is a trick but it works.
itis most difficult to raise anchor in a brisk wind and heavy chop. you did good. i had to call a friend to keep off rocks in 25-30 kts norther in mazatlan old harbor as i drove my formosa into wind.
it is also possible with little effort to make a cqr stick. i was able to do that from 1995-2012. plowing corn is an addage resulting from poor anchoring technique. 2012-current i use bruce. i also use more chain than necessary and i sleep well at night. even in 40 kts set in silt.
even danforth holds in deep enough not surfline water. nothing holds in a surfline.

technique takes practice, and there is no substitute. once you have the technique perfected with practice, you can safely anchor using any anchor you have.

[malbert73]

Yeah, don’t go cheap or small on your ground tackle. I also put in a plug for new gen anchors (i have a mantus, not really that expensive, holds great) as they seem to require less technique and tend to set more quickly and strongly.
In the middle of that ordeal, how much would you have spent if you could be assured of your anchor holding? Bet at least the cost of a mantus

[kriskro]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

I was in a marina just a few miles E of Kriskro's anchorage that night.

It was just a nasty affair. At my marina, the wind peaked at 59 knots from the S around 19 hours local. With time of high tide v close to the period of peak gusts (semidiurnal tide regime; the max range that day Sunday 11 Feb was 1.5 m but the range up to the 1854 high was 0.9 m and the range from that high to the Monday low was 1.1 m).

The Tangalooma anchorage is clean sand. Tidal current can be close to 3 knots in spring tides, so how a boat sits depends on the boat and which of wind and tide is stronger. CQR anchors work okay. Rocna and similar work better. I've not used a Bruce there (or anywhere else).

Getting into and out of the anchorage in poor conditions is not always easy. Entry and exit for a keel yacht is at the S of the anchorage and requires a little piloting (lights in line). Once outside the anchorage, you're faced with a shipping channel. Which can be busy at times.

With luck a chartlet will be attached below.

In my marina, I lost some boat canvas (ripped, not blown away). One vessel broke its docklines. A few other boats with minor damage (boat canvas, gear blown overboard etc).

The Bureau of Met does a fair job of storm prediction, but getting the predictions requires monitoring their website and their weather radar. A lightning strike from that storm disabled the main weather radar for several hours (but after the gusts had peaked).

From my own perspective, I had monitored the weather radar. But was confident that the dangerous cell inside the storm front was going to miss me. I was wrong.

I can add that I don't particularly like the Tangalooma anchorage. If I was going to be on that coast, I would have been at the Sandhills (where the tidal current is close to nil so you sit only to the wind as a rule) or Lucinda Bay. But neither of those two anchorages has any protection from W. And in the t-storm cells you cannot always be sure that you will not get a burst from W. Tangalooma, because of the wrecks and the sandbar, does have some protection from W (at the Sandhills, I'd either try to sit out a W burst or weigh anchor and look for protection at Mud Island).

Thunderstorm season is like that. Plenty of opportunity to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And not easy to know where the right place is.

Haha I 120 % agree with you Alan ! It's always rocking at tangalooma, especialy when the big ship pass by or when the tidal current put you perpendicular to the waves !

I checked the radar on my arrival as well as the sever thunderstorm warning. But once you are at tangalooma at 4pm and the storm is coming from south west, not much time to escape to another sheltered area... At least the free diving near the wrecks was nice in the morning

At the end, i'm pretty happy of the end of the story and did level up quite a bit in my motoring skill in difficult situation... Going in the marina will look like a piece of cake now

Ps : I'm based in Sandgate, boat Voodoo

[Symphony]

I think your tactic of motoring to keep the boat headed either into whatever was most problematic (wind, wave, current) was a good idea. Probably a bit tiring and scary, but works. I've done the same in crowded New England anchorages when a squall blows through. Storm force winds but never last more than 20 minutes.

[Boatyarddog]

Originally Posted by kriskro

Hi,

I had a bit of troubles last week end when being at anchored !

Queensland happen to have sever thunderstorm that are forecasted only couple of hours before they arrive....

I did put all the chain i had out, but it didn't help and I started dragging (fast), by night, with 45 / 50 knots of winds, 1.5 meter waves, and stuck in between 3 boats and the beach.

I ended up fighting the elements for 30 minutes trying more or less to keep the boat in the tiny space that i had.

With the engine full on forward, the anchor still in the water (I have no windlass, and the time to go and pull the anchor manually, without considering the wind effect, I would have ended up on the beach very quicky...) It was very hard to keep the boat facing the waves / wind. Each time a gust came, it was pushing the boat on the side either closer to the beach or to another boat...

I knew that the storm was going to be short and that it was a matter of time before it calm down... So i kept fighting with the engine...
But i am now questioning what I could have done better in this situation.

(I already put a second anchor and chain on board ! )

Any ideas ?

Sounds like you did what you could at the time, and by the way good choice
As for what to do next time? That can be a challenge.
Not knowing the anchorage, any number of issues can come up.
Maybe a little bit of research, queries to other boaters that know that area.
Possibly an anchor windlass, I know, expensive!
You now have the extra anchor, is it good for the places you go?
A couple of different types will help, Rocna, delta fast set, Bruce.
Sand is some what difficult to stay set in with lots of pull on it, once it is pulled it can be difficult to reset.
Maintaining your position was a good way to manage your situation, I've been up several nights with the wind howling and waves bashing against the boat on a close lee shore, it happens.
This time you did okay, next time you'll do even better‼️
SV Cloud Duster

[Scaramanga F25]

Sorry, but your anchor was not set.

[Greg Mason]

Interesting post and responses. I have always used a guideline of at least 1 lb of anchor per foot of length. Then there's the displacement question. Always used a real Bruce, but when we got to Mexico, (read sand bottom) and got into one of those blows we used our storm anchor, an oversized CQR and never took it off until home from Polynesia. Having all chain is good too, but without a windlass, I wonder if your chain size was also light for your needs. I remember anchoring in San Blas, Mexico in a river, and the depth was 10'. Our neighbour suggested we put out 100' feet of chain, and now I understand why. So anchor weight, chain size and scope are things one may want to consider. Glad you withstood the challenge.

[donradcliffe]

I've spent time at Tangalooma, and would have probably bailed out before the storm hit, rather than taking pictures of it, and spent the night at Mud Island. Tangalooma is a bit tight and exposed for a real blow. You did the right thing in motoring up, but its always hard to know where you are in the dark. An all chain rode will be less likely to get fouled in the prop if you motor too far up on the anchor.

The CQR needs to go, but don't replace it with a Bruce, or even a Buegel. Neither of them have near the surface area of the Rocna/Manson/Mantus/Spade type of modern anchor.

[Ken Z]

Anchoring #115. determine the type of bottom, choose the proper type of anchor you have on board for bottom conditions. assess the area of anchoring in. drop anchor and start lightly setting it as you fall off, and when she starts to bite take a turn, let line slip 20’ , take a bite, , continue doing this until you achieve the scope you want.BACK DOWN. if you feelslippage pull up and reset. carefully motor ahead at a 30-40 degree angle to slightly behind and off to the side , the 30-40 degree angle drop the less anchor for bottom conditions and repeat the setting process. I use 20’ of chain and 3strand nylon. I have noticed people assume to drop the hook and chain, esp. with a all chain rode and all is good, “ she ll hold” thinking, or assumption... sometimes... a lot of anchors on boats, esp. over 30’ are undersized. I started anchoring mydads fishing boat at 11 underhis directions without a windlass in 1959. You did the right thing captain in that situation, and you are open to learning. assume nothing, change is the onlygiven.😀

[Cadence]

My opinion is you handled it well given the situation you described. You might want to consider a larger or different anchor in the future.

[Paul L]

Put it down to a great educational event. Tangalooma anchorage is open to the west with a lot of fetch. It is well protected from the east. The area gets random, outrageous wind from thunderstorms pretty regularly. The obvious armchair response is to pick better anchoring spots. The reality is that Moreton Bay is large but has few good anchorage for its size.

Sounds like you managed the situation with the motor well. When it's really dark and the wind is blinding it can be really difficult to judge how much power and the correct direction to steer to keep the pressure off the anchor without over running it.
Possible improvements for your setup:
1. Ditch the CQR for a modern anchor
2. Be wary of open anchorage in a season where the wind direction and speed can.change radically
3. Set up a system where it is easy to slip your anchor when you want to bail out and retrieve the next day
4. Having a power windlass is a plus in these situations although pretty hard to use without competent crew

[fatherchronica]

On July 4th 1976 my soon to be ex wife and I were anchored in probably 30 feet of water with a Fishermans anchor with maybe 25 feet of chain and the rest some old nylon, at Smugglers Cove, Santa Cruz Island, California in Tramp, our converted Navy whaleboat ketch, Tramp, along with I bet about 40 other boats. A bit after we went to sleep we heard yelling outside " ahoy Tramp" and some expletives directed at our old sort of sad, cheap, first yacht. We came on deck to, I estimated later when I had more experience, about 35 kts of wind from a Santa Ana wind that came up, and we had dragged towards the shore to a spot in between 2, maybe 60 foot teak covered Taiwainesy type sailboats. There were a bunch of pretty drunk folks on both boats yelling at us to get out of there and still some expletives concerning our yacht. We had no motor, and very little experience, but we raised the mizzen and the staysl and when I got on the bow I pulled in some rode then we pushed or pulled depending on the location, the two sails and began moving into the wind as I hauled in the ground tackle. We tacked out about 100 yards past the farthest from shore boat and reanchored with all of our undersized rode out, and went back to sleep. We were awakened at dawn by the sound of cannons, we thought, going off. When we went on deck 3 boats were in the surf. And the cannons were their keels hitting the shelf as they were picked up on really big waves and slammed down on the shore. The newspaper next day said that 60 knot winds were barreling into Smugglers that morning. By noon there was not a breath of wind and we weighed anchor and sculled a couple miles towards home until a nice little breeze came up. We could see the 2 big boats still in the surf, heeled over towards shore when we left, but we were pretty far out and did not own binoculars then. The lessons I learned that night were that we might have been better off than the big boats in that our crew were young pot smoking hippies who could wake up and function right away, and that it is a waste of time and money to try to save your marriage by going on a vacation. Sorry, not relevant, but it reminded me of that weekend. A couple of years ago me and my 2nd wife, were caught in Balandra, BCS, Mexico, by a Corumel that came up about midnight. We were the closest in, in about 10 feet of water. The wind was 45 kts gusting higher, the bottom was white sand, and 2 and 3 foots waves were breaking right at our bow. We let out a bunch more scope and set the anchor alarm and I did not sleep anymore for several hours, until it died down. A few 60 or 70 foot motor yachts dragged and spent the night motoring into the wind. We did not move an inch. The other lesson from 1974 I learned caused us to get all chain rode and a 55 pound, 2 sizes larger that recommended, Rochna anchor. We also have a 35 lb. CQR on the bow, and a 35 lb. Bruce and 35 lb Fortress on the stern, but didn't any but the Rochna that night. Big anchors an all chain rode, and an alarm are what I recommend. Okay, I need to go paint the facia on the front of the house now, goodbye.

[Mistress Sirena]

One of the best threads so far great info very relevant.CHEERS.