Capt. Dan gets a lesson in anchoring

Sancerre at Platts Harbor Santa Cruz island Here we are, happily anchored at Platt’s Harbor on Santa Cruz Island. Peaceful. Serene on this Sat. morning.

But turn back to our first day of our 5-day adventure: Predictions of high wind and mounting seas, Gale warnings. On the bright side – it was bright and warm.

Actual weather – as forecast.

With seas averaging 10 feet or so and only 2 hours until sunset, we elected to complete the first leg of our adventure by motoring into 25+ knot winds towards Yellowbanks. We got a call from a yacht ahead of us, who could see into the anchorage and they inquired, “Why are there no boats in Smugglers?”

The wind was edging toward 30 knots and I speculated that that wind was swirling down the valley into Smugglers and that we were heading to Yellowbanks.

We arrived in Yellowbanks, looking for Randy Chapman’s windproof hole, only to find 11 or so boats anchored or attempting to anchor. But RC’s spot was empty with most boats anchored several hundred yards farther out.

We headed for the spot in the middle of the highest bluff where the wind would be lightest. It was now gusting in the mid-30′s.

We carry a French Plough anchor and 400 feet of chain and have never had a problem setting the hook.

We motored at fairly high power and as long as we were oriented directly into the wind, could maintain reasonably precise directional control. I pulled the anchor pin and set up to deploy the anchor manually by releasing the break.

All was set. We reached our spot, slowed to a stop and I let go the anchor, veering out 200′ of chain as the wind pushed us back.

But a funny thing happened on our way downwind – the bow turned slightly off the wind and we accelerated sharply and uncontrollably. Dennis applied full power, but the bow kept swinging to leeward and the boat continued to accelerate, right at the boat just behind us.

Dennis kept the throttle up and regained some measure of directional control, but we were still headed downwind, whizzing by the downwind yacht whose crew’s OMYGAWD visages turned to smiles as we missed them by a few hundred feet and headed toward open water.

I’m sure we set some sort of speed record for going sideways with the anchor out.

Dennis regained control and with a lot of power headed us back into the wind and back towards the anchor as I heaved it up.

We had gotten uncomfortably close to the yacht anchored downwind. We’d dropped our hook 500-700 yards beyond him, but had covered that distance in a matter of a minute or so. Everyone in the anchorage was either busy with their own problems or watching us, particularly the folks who were on the endangered yacht downwind. Now that it’s over and no one was hurt and all the gelcoat is unmarred, I have to admit it was quite a show.

I learned a couple of lessons here: in heavy winds, don’t anchor directly upwind of another boat. and by directly, I mean within a 30 degree cone. Have a competent helmsman and brief him on what might go wrong and what to do. Fortunately, I had a helmsman of great skill who understood what to do as the situation developed. Dennis saved our bacon on this one.

In high winds – which we noted during a “lull” were over 40 – don’t expect the anchor to take root. I knew it would take longer to set, but on our first attempt, it NEVER took hold. I suspect that the shackle didn’t swivel properly and the anchor did not orient itself properly. That had happened before, but only on retrieval. The corollary to Murphy’s Law came into play: if anything can go wrong it will go wrong (and the corollary) at the worst possible time.

After we got the anchor up and blew out of Yellowbanks, we set up for another attempt at the north end of Middle Anchorage. It was still blowing in the high 30′s, but this time all went as planned.

About an hour after we got the hook set, the wind died to 5 kts. or so and we spent a comfortable night.

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Capt. Dan gets a lesson in anchoring