Anchoring nightmare this week

[Greg K]

Bahamian Moor is your solution next time. Carry two anchors on the bow.

https://www.anchoring.com/blogs/anch...rs-off-the-bow

[Auklet]

Originally Posted by rhubstuff

[QUOTE I don't like the idea of a second anchor, because I'm worried about the two getting intertwined as the boat flips around during the night.

I wouldn't worry about the rodes getting intertwined. In a situation where wind and tide may spin the boat in a 360, yes, the rodes may wrap around each other. Having spent a lot of time in the Bahamas using a Bahamian moor (one anchor upstream and one down, boat in the middle), I just accepted the fact that I would have to untangle them. Sometimes we would anchor for 3-4 days and there would be 3-4 wraps to undo. Sure, you might want to clear a wrap in unsettled weather, but sometimes the boat will spin the other way and unwrap itself. To unwrap a rode, I would coil up the lighter of the two and simply pass that coil around the working rode from the deck or from the dinghy.

Interesting. I did not know that the rodes would tangle if the boat is lying to a Bahamian moor. If properly set the anchor rodes lie 180 deg relative to one another forming a “straight” line. Boat is attached by the bow to each at mid-point where they meet. It swings to the current on one then the other through the tidal cycle. I would expect there to be little risk of crossing them, at least seriously.

[Greg K]

Originally Posted by Auklet

Interesting. I did not know that the rodes would tangle if the boat is lying to a Bahamian moor. If properly set the anchor rodes lie 180 deg relative to one another forming a “straight” line. Boat is attached by the bow to each at mid-point where they meet. It swings to the current on one then the other through the tidal cycle. I would expect there to be little risk of crossing them, at least seriously.

Rarely will you not get one turn per 24 period. The rodes will almost always cross each other at the bow. Not a big deal. Keep the secondary on mostly rope and pull it all out of the chain locker. It's just a matter of taking out the one turn by passing the rope around the primary once each morning.

[Manrico]

Sorry for my poor english
Hi folks, a boat need 3 things to be safe:
She needs to float,
Water can't got into,
2 or more complete and ready to go anchoring stuff.
I woke up with hard wind and waves bumping my CD28 in the mood, my anchor slips and I was very close to shore, I put my second stuff in the dinguie and made another point of anchorage as far as I can and went to safe sleep again.
I have 3 complete and ready to go anchors.
One 15kg Rocha + 80m chain
One big Fortress + 20m chain + 30m rope
One small Fortress + 15m chain + 30 rope
100m 15mm nylon rope.

[JBP]

Originally Posted by Rohan

Absolutely! What I'm wondering though is how I would have cleared it. I just don't know. Diving in was not really an option. It was at night, in cloudy water, and rough conditions.

A couple ideas come to mind (setting aside all the 20/20 hindsight "don't get in that situation " suggestions.)

1) Do you have a dinghy? Tow yourself or pull the boat around to unwrap the rode.

2) Drop a second anchor so you can slack off your rode to untangle it. Or use the second anchor to kedge your boat around.

3) Catch the rode where it leads away from the boat and walk the rode around the boat to unwind it. You can do this by using a variety of techniques. If you are really lucky, you might be able to snag the rode with a long boat hook. Otherwise wrap a line around the rode, slide this line aft so you can pull on the rode. You may have to contend with your rudder, so if you feed a third line behind the keel but in front of the rudder (maybe sink a portion of floating line so you can grab it on the other side with the boat hook?). Pull your rode up the other side until it is clear of the boat. Now you can secure it, release it from the bow in the normal way. Then either unwrap it or release it altogether and retrieve on the other side.

4) attach a float to your rode and let it loose or cut it if necessary. Once you are free you can then retrieve your anchor.

[CaptJimFrei]

If you consistently anchor where there's a strong tidal current, consider learning how to "bahamian moor"

A second anchor may have stopped the drift.

[DEC2017]

I agree with Shanachie. I started using a Kellet and am anchoring with peace of mind for the first time. My boat has a fin keel almost 6’ deep and have had the rode (10’ of chain on a 200’ nylon line) wrapped on the keel just as you described soon after buying the boat. I got out of the situation by dropping all of the remaining rode which allowed the rode to drop off the keel and made my escape. Very frightening but I did not suffer any damage. My kellet line attaches to my bow roller and the weight clips onto the rode with carabiners so it can be attached before or after dropping the anchor. The kellet line is long enough to get the kellet weight 4’ below the keel. Prior to learning about the kellet, I was using anchors off the boat and stern which was a pain but did work pretty well.

[rhubstuff]

Greg K is correct. I've had to unwind 2 or 3 wraps after a couple of days. In settled weather, not a problem. But you don't want to have to unwind a rode at 3 AM in a blow, so watch the weather!

[Dave_R]

>I woke up in middle of the night, was freaking out that I was a lot closer to shore than I intended. Wind was blowing 13 kts. Thinking my anchor probably slipped or something, I got up to move to a safer spot.

Another thing that would have helped this situation (which I consider mandatory) is an anchor alarm. I set one every time I anchor. At least once, it saved my boat from going on the rocks. I know of two other cases where an anchor alarm would have prevented some serious damage.

Don't have a chart plotter for the anchor alarm? No problem! My favorite anchor alarm is on my smartphone. If you use Navionics or AquaMaps (my choice) I believe they both have anchor alarms.

In your case, an anchor alarm might have notified you before you dirfted very far, and maybe early enough to have avoided the wrap around the keel.

[Elcapt]

Very interesting. It is not all about your rope rode. I managed to wrap my all chain rode around the keel of our 36 classic gaff rigged ketch in 30' water showing folks how (as it turns out) not to anchor.

We were in a tidal gyre, like a secret whirlpool, that may occur in a circular type harbor/ shoreline on an island especially at full flood or ebb at mid tide where there is a good range 10-12 '.

We jumped the chain off gthe windlass ( big lunenburg type w drum turning fore and aft) to slack the pressure and the weight of chain finally cleared it. Starting the motor could have caused a disaster. I doubt the lobster or crab line cutters would do much with a heavy rope anchor rode, probably make it worse w tight wrap
or bend prop and shaft or cause a down flood from busted stern tube. Certainly it could stall the engine as its starting from 0 speed and no hp on the shaft.


The way out of your situation would have been to row out a kedge 100 yds ahead.
belay the main rode on a stout cleat (after you secure it w another line using a rolling hitch so that it can't get away from you or pinch you etc) then use your windlass to gain on the kedge and slack the main rode. It should drop off. gently rotate the prop by hand w motor off if you suspect a wrap) if you dive, tie on a rope so you don't get dragged off in the current you write of.! Been there done that!!!

Your danforth or fortress is only good for a lunch hook or kedge, as above or keeping the boat into a swell etc. I would never trust those for overnight anchoring. Forget them in gravelly sand or rock. At least have 50' of chain after it. 25'of light chain is useless except for coral protection in shallow water.

You may have benefitted from a buoyed trip line on the hook, however powering up on those can also cause a prop wrap in strong current.

You may have hit an extra strong current which will occur at mid tide ( see rule of 12ths) near new or full moon. This can be close to 2x what you may have experienced as "normal".

I always use a 25' rope snubber on full chain, and i think this helps a lot. Never seen a snubber on all rope but its doable.

if you put down two main anchors, which requires a lot of planning, its best to attach a large swivel to join them. Easy to say, hard to execute. And Hard to retrieve in bad conditions.

Good luck, my 2c: best get a Bruce or Rockna for your main, a Herreshoff knockdown
w a trip line, and then your Fortress for a kedge. The best for kedging is little stout rowboat. An inflatable w bad gas is tough to row!

[mtrees]

During the slack tide the boat walked around on the slack rope and the high probability it worked its way around the prop and shaft. A situation you would never have unraveled at night. With chain that situation is very unlikely to occur.

[solzephyr]

Lots of good anchoring advice here. Until it's not. Sailing is like that. Think in the moment. Really think it out before you react, if possible.

[OneBoatman]

A 10lb Aluminum fluke style anchor, ie Fortress FX 16 is but a lunch hook for a Hunter 36. Not even close to being sized properly as a main anchor. Its crazy how some yards will commission a boat with whatever is lying around. It most likely wasn't the amount or chain nor its size as for why you broke loose. Anchoring in tidal rivers can be challenging even in relatively light winds. I'm guessing you meant to say the chain was 15ft of 5/16". Anything shorter or lighter gauge would not be appropriate for a 36 ft sailboat displacing somewhere close to 15,000 lbs. Generally about 1/2 to 1 boat is good for a chain to rope tackle. You have many choices today, but you definitely should be using a bigger anchor; I would say 25 lbs if you are with the Fortress, fluke style. If you go to a plow or Bruce or Navy I would say 30-35 lbs so long as you don't see much more than 50 knots of wind. You can always go all in for an Ultra, a Rocna or Mantus still but you still want be at least one and in some cases two sizes above what the mfgr recommends. If you have a full enclosure or the boat has a lot of windage it's better to go up. Do verify the shank length of your next anchor will rest properly between your bow roller and windlass before purchasing.

[rossdv8]

Originally Posted by Rohan

400' of chain on a 42' boat? Wouldn't that be like 400 pounds?? (182kg). Can your windlass even handle that? Could you manually handle it? Also, why do you need such a long chain? Do you regularly anchor in 60 ft of water?

My general preference for anchor rode on the little 26 foot ex-racing Quarter Tonners I did coastal cruising and live-aboard on, was for about twice the boat length in 3/8" chain attached to the anchor, followed by at least three times the boat length in 1/4 inch chain, attached to a big heap of inch and a half circumference nylon.


So for a 26 foot yacht weighing only a couple of ton, that's an anchor rode of around 50' + 75' = 100' in chain plus whatever amount of rope I let out.


If I could practically carry and store more chain on what were originally designed to be racing yachts, I would have. I can easily see myself carrying 400 foot of all chain anchor rode on a 42 foot live aboard yacht if it only weighed as much as a couple f good hefty crew members.
I really don't think 400' of anchor rode is excessive.

This is why I don't anchor with rode, I have seen too many problems like this, the boat swings around too easily, and as you discovered the rode can wind up in your prop.

I saw that in the thread and wondered what Renegde uses to anchor with?
Since the 'rode' is everything attached to the anchor including chain AND rope . .


An all chain rode would be ideal, but in a lot of cases it is simply impractical, so a mixed chain and rope rode is just 'the way it has to be'.



BTW, the reason I had what was considered a lot of chain and such heavy rope in the rode for such a small yacht, was that practically all our really nice anchorages have either rock or coral bommies, and are prone to cyclones.

Two of my last 3 yachts were lost to cyclones (2010 and 2017) but in both cases, the yachts, which had sat out passing cyclones at anchor, were ripped off their moorings. The third, and last, I sold a couple of years ago.


Sometimes Ive dragged at anchor in winds above 40 knots, but it was always when it was in a confined deep water anchorage and I'd only been able to have about a 3 to 1 scope where there was something like 30 feet of water at high tide, and about 10 feet at low tide. Obviously scope was calculated for high tide. but limited by distance at low tide.


Many of our tides have about a 20 foot rise and fall, so I've also managed to get the heavy rope jammed between the top of the rudder and the hull. Not as exciting as getting it wrapped around a prop shaft, but in a place where we sometimes have large salt water crocodiles swimming past and always have various hungry sharks around, it can be interesting underwater



While I hated having to lift the stuff by hand (on a high tide) before I installed a which, I do love chain rode . .

[Renegde_Sailor]

If you are super concerned about swinging, a line to shore or a stern anchor will solve the issue.

If you run a line to shore, around a tree or big smooth rock or the like, then back to the boat, you can simply untie one end and pull the slack back aboard.

Even if you are doing the Bahamian moor, a line to shore will keep you from spinning giving you a 3rd point of contact.