The usual 4:00am Fire drill

[Jim Walsh]

I've been anchored in Great Salt Pond for the last couple days.....uneventful days thankfully. Tonight, or should I say this morning, things have livened up. A front was predicted to pass through from 11:00pm to 8:00am. It arrived on time and, as has been the case many times, there is a dance which takes place just about the same time.
Some people insist on investing in large boats and tiny ground tackle. Seems a little backwards to me. The local Tow Boat affiliate appreciates these hapless folks but the rest of us could really do without the excitement. I've been keeping an eye on five boats in my vicinity. So far two boats, both 40+ feet, have been towed to safety all wrapped up around each other's ground tackle after sidling up to a Grand Banks trawler off my port side, one boat is being towed this moment from beside the very same Grand Banks trawler just off my port side which had previously hosted the two 40 footers I just mentioned, and another 40+ foot long keeled teak pleasure palace is stabilized (I hope) for the moment 60 feet off my starboard bow. I'd been watching him slowly drag toward me for an hour.
Now another 50+ foot sloop has just dragged down onto the same Grand Banks that the previous three boats dragged onto, and the poor owner of the trawler is retrieving his ground tackle, I can hear his electric winch straining away. I think he's had it with sailboats for tonight.
If things quiet down, and that pleasure palace off my starboard bow doesn't come any closer, I'm going back to bed.

[Frenchy]

About 8 years ago my son and I sailed into Great Salt Pond with my Cal 27, having lost our Yanmar GM-1 because
of a cracked injection line right at the injector. We set my oversized Fortress with 30' of chain under sail in a crowded harbor in the failing light.
All looked well, so we sent to sleep. About midnight we woke up to "Hey, captain you're dragging". In that
crowded space, it was near impossible to sail out and we had no engine. Luckily, a good samaritan from one of
the megayachts came over in his mega-RIB and towed us to an unused private mooring.
Later we heard that the whole area is notorious for bad holding. I think the soft mud there prevents anything
like a Danforth penetrating. A heavy, point-loaded anchor will get down to a better holding strata, I'm guessing.
So, speaking as a humiliated victim of the Great Salt Pond, the anchors on those other boats might have been sized appropriately, just not the right type for that bottom. - Jean

[Steve Darwin]

Around Buzzards Bay also, several spots (Hadley's Harbor!) have a soupy bottom thick with grass that neither the Danforth nor Fortress can effectively penetrate. (The heavier CQR is ok as a lunch-hook if the wind is calm.)

Does anyone here have experience stowing and deploying a kedge (fisherman's, yachtsman's, Herreshoff) anchor without benefit of a windlass? http://www.peluke.com/marine-hardware/boat-anchors/

Steve D.

[John Stone]

I carry a 70 lb Luke on the Far Reach but I have not had to use it yet. If you are a member, Off Center Harrbor has a nice video on anchoring with a yachtsman style anchor where Claas van der Linde deploys and recovers one off of his NY 30 Alera. If I recall correctly he does not have a windlass. There are some helpful additional suggestion in the co me to section of that video.

Jim, I have spent a couple of anxious nights watching people drag through anchorages. Not fun.

[Jim Walsh]

I carry a 70 lb Luke on the Far Reach but I have not had to use it yet. If you are a member, Off Center Harrbor has a nice video on anchoring with a yachtsman style anchor where Claas van der Linde deploys and recovers one off of his NY 30 Alera. If I recall correctly he does not have a windlass. There are some helpful additional suggestion in the co me to section of that video.

Jim, I have spent a couple of anxious nights watching people drag through anchorages. Not fun.

I had a hundred feet of chain out and my thirty-five pound Spade. I was in twenty feet at high tide. Had my neighbors been as conservative as me we all would have gotten a good nights sleep. Good ground tackle is cheap insurance.

[Steve A]

We were in the Bahamas one winter and a norther passed through, it was a crowded anchorage and bout 1 am some of the new arrivals from earlier that day began to drag. Spreader lights were coming on and motors were starting. One guy and his attractive young 1st mate who had been having issues when anchoring, the usual yelling and carrying on. He'd anchored very close to one boat, and the owner politely told him he was too close, had crossed his rode and to please spread out like like others had done. He reluctantly did so and all seemed well till the wind shifted in those early hours. We had heard the commotion and turned on the VHF and the conversation had a few expletives and the veteran said hey skipper it looks like you've drug down on us and the reply from new guy was ...what makes you say that..... I think you drug up on me !