09/26/2008 Sitting out the weather

09/26/2008 I have not been off the boat now for five days. The winds are finally letting down and I feel comfortable with the anchor holding after these last couple days. I am anchored on Weems Creek off of the Severn River near Annapolis. I sailed here to make sure I would be able to pick up my friends that are coming in early Saturday morning. When I arrived on the creek, it was a lot more congested with boats on moorings and anchor than I had seen any other time I have been here. (This picture was taken after boats ahead of me left and most of the boats are behind me.) I found a place to anchor and had concerns as I was close to another boat and if my anchor dragged much, there was the possibility of swinging into them. That is a definite no-no in the boating world. Sort of like driving your car into the neighbors home.

The weather had been calling for building winds of 20-25 knots and gusting to 40. I have anchored in conditions like this before, but never with this boat. I have felt confident most of the time over the years anchoring, except due to a couple of times in the past. The first was anchoring on a lake in Colorado using a danforth type anchor. It is shown in the first picture. The idea is that that when the anchor is set down, the shaft flukes with lay flat on the bottom and then as you drag the anchor, the flukes will dig into the bottom and bury the anchor. An advantage of this anchor is that it can land on either side and work. With this in mind, if the wind shifts, the anchor will either drag around and re-align itself with the boat or if can be pulled out, flip on its other side and dig in. The issue that happened on this one occurrence was that a root fouled in the flukes and the anchor could not dig in as the flukes could not settle and dig in.

The other time was when Sara and I were on our adventure in the Florida Keys. Again at the time I was using the danforth anchor you see above along with a second one. We were anchored on the south side of Boot Key near Marathon. We were exposed to any weather from the east and low and about a storm came in with winds from the east. We slipped boat anchors. I was able to retrieve one of them onto the boat, but the second one wrapped around the keel and fouled the motor. With the wind and having no motor, I did not work through all my options very quickly, but I knew that I had a boat that was easily beachable as the keel fully retracted into the boat. The boat was sailing at 2.5 knots under bare poles. I decided to head for the beach to straighten everything out. About 100 yards from the beach we hit a sandbar and that worked out just as good. I was able to get off of the boat, take care of the anchor and settle down for the night. This all happened as the sun was setting, of course.

Now I have had only those two incidents, but I am sure that there will be number three, four and so on as long as I sail. I have done a few things since the last incident. I bought a new anchor call a plow. Pictured here is one on my boat as a back-up. The primary anchor also is a plow. I also carry two danforth anchors with me. The reason the anchors slipped in FL was two reasons. One was that the bottom was covered in sea grass and that is very tough to anchor in as the grass makes it difficult for the flukes to dig into the bottom. The other was, as a habit of mine, to set the anchor under sail. This did not give enough pressure to the anchor to dig in also. Since then, I have never just dropped the anchor and allow the wind to provide the pressure to set the anchor. I always will use the motor.

Now we come to the present again. I knew about the weather coming in and the bottom of most of the Chesapeake is mud. This is easy to set and anchor in, but also easy to slip an anchor. I have felt confident with the plow anchor on my boat and its holding power. The rode (line used to hold anchor to the boat) is all chain and works well. When I was talking with some catamaran owners Saturday evening, the one man just put down the danforth and plow. I never asked him what he used and should have. I do know that anchors are like politics and religion, everyone has their opinion. Also after I was anchored, the local harbor master stopped by to reinforced the information about the weather and that I should have an anchor watch on for the weather. An anchor watch is someone or different people that rotate through the night to make sure that the anchor is holding properly. The big problem is that there is only one on the boat. It had been one of my concerns, and still is, is that I can easily sleep through a storm while anchored on a boat. As a compromise, I set my watch to alarm every two hours to check how the boat was holding. This worked out very well and did not cause a problem with sleep.

Well we made it through the worst of the weather and it is time to get the bike out and head to shore for a ride and stretch out awhile.

By the way, if you haven’t noticed, I have enabled the comments button located at the bottom of every entry now. You can send me hellos, comments or questions. You will give me something to write about to help you better understand how my life and adventures are going.