"The long-distance cruiser's two most valuable assets are the automatic steering gear and the anchor because at all times, one or the other of these is looking after his boat." ...or so it is said. It had not been completely true for us because we were still primarily users of marinas and moorings when cruising. One reason for this is that in the busy, commercial ports of southern England, northern France and the Channel Islands, where we had been so far, all the decent natural and man-made anchorages are already completely full of laid moorings. Someone is making a profit from each of these facilities and anchoring in amongst them is out of the question. We had only used our ground tackle in exposed or relatively unsatisfactory places and therefore only as a 'lunch-hook', never to sleep at anchor for example.
There was no wind at all as we nosed up in amongst the other yachts in the sheltered anchorage we had chosen within Falmouth's large river estuary. I dropped our hook between the sterns of two other boats as we gently came to a standstill. We waited for our drift to start pulling the flaked chain cable from the deck. It never did. There was so little wind that we were not going to drift back at all. I asked Nicky to engage reverse gear at tick-over revs and help things along. Rusalka Mist usually has a mind of her own in reverse and today was no exception. We tracked off in some obscure direction and I paid out the chain gently as we went.
There was 4.2 m of water where we had dropped the anchor so I made fast at 20 m of chain (approx. 5 times depth). We pulled hard in reverse to set the anchor nicely into the sea-bed, checking with beam transits that it was not dragging. I then went below to do some calculations: At high tide the depth here would be 7.8 m, it transpired. The formula I have found that is best for finding the minimum safe length of chain to lay is 12√d (12 times the square root of the depth). This gave 33.5 m, so I went back on deck and laid out 35 m of chain. I made all fast, checked our anchor bearings (or transits) again, and we settled down to relax for our first night at anchor.
A little breeze filled in and the cable began to straighten out on the sea-bed and do some work. Other yachts came in and anchored around and behind us. We refilled a paraffin storm lamp and set it up in the forward rigging to act as an anchor light (lacking an electric one at the time). We ate a good dinner, lit the lamp, checked our bearings, and went to bed early.
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| Some of our neighbours in the calm, evening anchorage in Falmouth |
At 01:00 I woke up due to some motion in the boat and was suddenly aware that there was sounds of a wind outside. We went out for a look around and it was a good job we did. Twenty yards away, our neighbour of last night, Gandia Lady, was nearly alongside! We looked at the situation for a while. The wind had veered by 90° and had risen to about 15 knots. If it continued to veer we would probably just swing ahead of Gandia Lady, but it would be close and being so close we could not afford to drag our anchor or to veer more cable should the need arise. Now was the time to act, so we started the engine and I pulled up the black, muddy chain while Nicky motored us up towards the anchor. When it was all up, she drove us up to windward a bit and we laid it all back out again. No problem drifting the cable out this time!
We could not believe it! When all the cable was out again - I hadn't uncleated it - we were exactly back where we started! Ready to pass just ahead of Gandia Lady again! No problem. We just had to pull it all up once more... This time we drove well up to windward, and then some! This time it was all ok, so I cleaned myself up with a bucket of sea water - more black mud than you can shake a stick at! We made a cup of tea and watched the situation for a while. Everything seemed ok, we had dug the anchor in well again and we were holding fine. At about 02:00 we went back to bed.
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| Our view of the freighters before the wind veered and strengthened |
A loud thump on the hull next to my head woke me with a real start at 08:00. We both leapt instantly into the cockpit. Right alongside was another yacht, with a stark naked couple in the cockpit staring at us open mouthed. We stared back for a few seconds, at a complete loss - then they moved off backwards. Suddenly it all made sense. They - not us, thank goodness - had dragged their anchor and had hit us amidships in the process. Then we realised that we were both starkers too. That was one of those frozen moments in time you don't forget in a hurry! I checked our side and no damage was done, except for a little clean area where they had touched the white gel-coat.
They had much bigger problems than us. Not only did they have to get all their anchor cable back up and start the engine before they reached the large vessels behind us, but by incredible bad luck, their rubber dinghy's painter had been cut in the collision. It was scudding under the bows of one of the huge freighters already. We dressed, thanking our lucky stars, and began to take stock of the situation.
The wind was over 20 knots and had veered 270° since we dropped the anchor and all the boats were ranging left and right on their cables as the wind took them first one way then the other. The couple who had dragged came back, towing their dinghy and looking composed again, to ask if we were ok. We told them we were and wished them well for the rest of the blow.
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| After the wind came up, these ships began to look like quite a nasty lee shore... |
By 08:45 the wind had reached 25 knots and Silver Grockle, another neighbour of ours, dragged off downwind instead of 'tacking' after one of her swings. Five minutes later the wind was 28 knots and I went forward to veer out another 10 meters of chain, so that we swung to 45 m. By 09:00 the wind was gusting over 30 knots (Force 7) but the weather forecast on the radio gave only 'SW veering W F4 increasing F5 or 6.' At 09:30 they broadcast a strong wind warning saying 'W - NW F6 increasing F7, with gusts to 40 knots.' This was more like what we were now seeing. At 10:00 they finally announced 'Gale Warning: NW Force 8 imminent.' We were doing fine but many of our neighbours had now decided to up anchor and go. With so much space around us I decided to take no chances and put out all the chain we had: 60 m. That should do it...
Almost as soon as I had all the chain out, the Harbour Master's launch came around telling us all to clear the anchorage immediately: A large, unexpected ship was coming in to shelter from the storm. The space we were in would be needed by the tugs to swing her into a berth. Ah, well. Nothing for it but to pull all that chain in again and head over to the nearby marina. The marina was over-full already but we did all right getting in and alongside Reveller, a Vancouver 32, in a big raft-up on one of the pontoons. The Dunkirk Spirit was in full sway on all the other boats and we soon had a cat's cradle of lines holding everything safe and secure. There was nothing else to do so we went ashore to pay our dues and explore the town.
