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Anchoring bow and stern …. The One True Way.

Sounds religious, doesn’t it?

And it does have a religious sort of feel what with all the conflicting opinions and several bibles that are in conflict. Me, I’m an agnostic in this matter.

First – some things to consider.

What is the depth and – as important – what is the beach gradient (how much does it slope). If the stern anchor is in 12 feet of water and the bow in 50 feet (as is sometimes the case at Santa Cruz), you’ve got some interesting rode calculations.

Let’s do this with a scenario – it’s daylight and we’re in a very narrow anchorage, cliffs on one side and rocks 100′ away on the other side. There is a light on shore breeze, but we anticipate it will shift to off-shore or die during the evening. Finally, we’re on a sand bottom that is fairly level. We elect to drop the hook in 20′ of water.

First way. Drive into the wind, stop, drop the bow hook, pay out 175′ of rode (7*(20+5). Set the bow anchor.
Now, launch the dinghy and drag out 175′ astern. Being careful not to get the stern rode fouled in the prop, motor forward to set the stern anchor.

Way numero two-o.
Motor into the wind, drop bow anchor, pay out 350-400 feet of rode. (This is fairly tricky because it’s hard to estimate where 400 feet is going to put your stern). Set the bow anchor.
Drop the stern anchor and slooooooowly motor forward, being very careful to keep the stern rode clear of the screw while simultaneously taking in the bow rode until you’ve got 175-200 feet at each end. Set the stern. Take slack out of rode.

A variation on this theme is dropping the stern hook first. That works fine as long as you have the stern into the wind. We do this at Fry’s all of the time, dropping the hook when there is a slight on-shore breeze in the afternoon, but anticipating night canyon winds.

In any event, always set the windward anchor first and retrieve it last.

Now double check the tide tables. If you’re on the low and anticipate more than a couple of feet rise, leave a little slack in the rode. If you’re high and going down, anticipate that your alignment will curve to leeward. Either take out the slack when the water recedes or live with the slop. (I usually live with it.)

If you’re in 12 feet of water astern and 50 at the bow, drop the bow anchor first, veer out about 450′ of rode (not many boats carry that much), so that you end up with about 350 on the bow and 90 astern.

Remember, it’s the angle between the anchor and the cleat that determines holding power. And also remember that just because the wind is blowing from the W when you anchor, it may not stay that way all night. We frequently experience 180 degree wind shifts – so called canyon winds – and that means what you had considered your primary anchor is now downwind. So both have to be well set.

When you’re ready to leave and the wind has shifted, pick up your leeward anchor first. In an emergency (unpredicted Santa Ana for instance), be prepared to abandon your leeward anchor. Tie a fender to it if you have time. In a pinch, with the winds pushing you onshore, be prepared to abandon both anchors.

I’ve anchored bow and stern quite a number of times. Even with all that practice, things can go to hell. I’ve had one anchor set and the second one not, I’ve been blown out of the anchorage by strong crosswinds, I’ve ended up with insufficient rode at one end or the other etc.

I’ve screwed it up almost every way possible. Anchoring with 2 anchors – at least around here – is 8x as tough as a single hook. Capt. Dan’s Law is that the difficulty of anchoring increases as the cube of the number of anchors …. but that’s probably optimistic.

So if it’s so hard, why do it?

In places like Fry’s, Diablo, Willows, Alberts there is simply not enough room to swing. Other times – this coming Labor Day weekend, for instance, there are so many boats in the anchorage that it’s the only way to squeeze in. In general, the first boat in the anchorage gets to call the shot. If he puts down two, we all put down two.

If you’re going to Prisoner’s this weekend figuring you’ll be on one-hook with a dozen other boats, don’t be surprised if everyone ahead of you has put down two hooks and that there are substantially more than a dozen boats. Last year there were 60 boats in there.

Have a great weekend.

See you on the water

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Tags: Alberts, anchor, anchor rode, anchoring technique, bow and stern anchoring, Diablo, Fry's, Prisoners, safety, Sailing, two anchors, Willows

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