You lay on my anchor and give me the dirty look?

D

dwarren

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Had a great solo day yesterday in a cove fixing minor stuff and just hanging out. The cove got busy after a while. A smaller center console threw out anchor in my vicinity. I decide to leave with a stiff WNW breeze. My windlass is not the fastest btw.....

Inevitably, I wind up with this guys rub rail pretty close to my boat.....and a lot of how dare you faces.....I expained that he was at fault and needed to be cognizant of where he is relative to other peoples anchors......blank stare.....
 
Very common here on week ends... I once had some idiot claiming I was dragging anchor upwind... he then ripped off his crappy azMutt rub rail on my chain. I didn't even bother looking for damage on my hull. Hatt vs Mutt

Recently another's idiot dropped anchor 75' off my bow at a 90 degree angle. Had to use the wishing him good luck clearing his danforth off my chain and 176 lbs claw. He quickly retrieved his hook before he could hook up my chain....
 
If I had a dollar for every time some bonehead pulls into a field of anchored boats - all facing into the wind/current - drops a hook, and backs either into the wind or crosswind, thinking that's where they'll stay. . . .
 
I need to invent my drill anchor.
The drill anchor looks like a drill bit.
It has a power wire down the center of the rope and is power to a 12v service on boat.
The drill anchor when it touches the bottom straight down from the boat will deploy a leg or legs to stand itself upright, then drill into the mud or sand and deploy all it's legs to hold tight. Reverse to come back.

It would hold tight. Send warning signal if loses its grip. Would require much less scope, and would retrieve itself when retrieve button is hit!

What do you think?
 
Cayo Costa was empty when I dropped my hook. later the second boat anchored directly upwind of me and set back directly over my anchor.

Time and again wherever I anchor, on both coasts, people seem to think they need to anchor right near me when there is plenty of room elsewhere.

I suspect they are insecure and think there is something really special that caused be to pick the only safe place in the anchorage.
 
I think the size and weight to hold a boat of any size would make it unmanageable. Add to that the complications of waves rising and falling and your anchor device directly below being pulled straight up and down by the motion of your floating boat.... Sure seems like a good plan though if it could be done.
 
Was in a popular local spot this past Saturday. Winds were 15-20 mph. One raft up (2 boats) approaching my port side fast. They were draggIng anchor and moving fast.
Survive that mess with a near miss.
Couple of hours later a mid 30 foot boat coming fast the same way. Nobody on the bridge or cockpit. I lean on horn. Guy comes out of cabin and realizes he has a problem. As he drifts by I see a float ted to one of his aft cleats and 3 kids in the water swimming as fast as they can trying to get back up on the float, Guy can't start motors because kids are too close to transom. Kids finally get up on boat, guy starts motors and gets himself out of the mess.
Adventures in boating!
 
I learned to use an anchor marker to avoid this. If there's risk of needing to retrieve the anchor by alternate means I use a cheap, small fender as a float and a line strong enough to pull the anchor out. For normal use I dropped $40 on one of these as it is easy to deploy and retrieve: https://elastatether.com/

Both options have worked well in home waters (Chesapeake) as people are scared that it is a crab trap and they'll get it rapped around their props. Another method I use is anchoring as shallow as possible. More than once I've had someone run aground trying to anchor close to me. Ah, the fun!
 
quote:
Originally posted by CurrentSea

I need to invent my drill anchor.
The drill anchor looks like a drill bit.
It has a power wire down the center of the rope and is power to a 12v service on boat.
The drill anchor when it touches the bottom straight down from the boat will deploy a leg or legs to stand itself upright, then drill into the mud or sand and deploy all it's legs to hold tight. Reverse to come back.

It would hold tight. Send warning signal if loses its grip. Would require much less scope, and would retrieve itself when retrieve button is hit!

What do you think?

Click to expand...
Dave, us guys with small boats call those things power poles! They work great.
 
Or, on larger boats, some sort of mechanism that deploys floats all around the boat. Make the morons think you've anchored in a group of pots and they'll stay away.

Here's another idea: Blast music at high levels from your flybridge while you're swimming because the sound waves go over your head and you can't hear the music (but it annoys the heck out of all the boats around you). Wait, that's what made me leave an anchorage one time. Effective, I guess, but I was there first!
 
A couple of years ago we were anchored in an isolated anchorage in the southern Exumas, all alone. Trawler shows up and starts dropping just 100'' behind us when he could have been 1/4 mile away or more with the same protection and holding I called him on the vhf to let him know there would be some late night partying with really loud music He said he didn't mind ...

Funny thing is I saw their blog a couple of days later and the previous entry was a rant about some other boat anchoring too close to them in another anchorage!

It s like ... why? You have a mile wide anchorage that s empty and all sandy on a calm day... respect my space !
 
Respect is getting hard to come by. Besides, he probably anchored on top of the "anchor" on the chart and you were in his way :-)
 
Anchoring is not an exact science. Lots of situations can be avoided but some are not. I think everyone has had an anchor drag or pull up. Seems like its part of the game we are in. I have to say I have noticed that anytime I have had an anchor drag or someone drag into me there has never been any hard feeling. Most times if possible it ends with a hand shake or it happens to everyone statement. When I have my raft in the water and I have unintentionally inconvenienced someone I usually go over to the boat and make peace or do a drive by with boat apologizing.
 
it s not an exact science but its not rocket science either. drop the right amount of scope, don't back down like a maniac while the anchor is setting and the odds of dragging are close to zero. We anchor well over 100 times a year and I can count on the finger of one hand the number of failure to set and drags.

yes, it can happen and that's ok when it does. But when you see someone dropping 3:1 scope on an undersized anchor too close to you, it s hard to avoid hard feelings.

same with swinging... all boats swing. when dropping in a busy anchorage I try to look at where the boats are pointing and at the angle of the rode of the nearby boats to make sure we don't get too close. once in a while, if we swing too close I ll raise anchor and reset. no big deal... so when some clown anchors too close and we swing within 20' of each other every few minutes I find it hard to smile.
 
I am part of the not enough scope problem and my reason is we usually anchor in coves or places that get very crowded. I am always out early and most times when I anchor there are only a few if not no boats out yet. By the end of the day there can be hundreds of boats anchored up. Now if every boat did a 7 to 1 anchor scope in say 20 ft of water we would all be pretty tangled up by days end. I currently have a 45 lb plow anchor with 30 ft of chain and next year when I replace the anchor rode I am going to make it 50 ft of chain.
 
Yeah but dragging doesn't work either. One trick I use in busy anchorages is to set with more scope, 7:1 and shortened it up to 5:1 or 4:1 if really needed That gives you a good set with less scope
 
Yup - lunch hook/calm waters, 5:1, 'standard'/reasonably calm, 7:1, rough/storm 10:1. IMHO the biggest reason most don't use enough scope is they don't know how much line they have out. If you anchor manually (e.g., deploying without a windlass), marking your anchor line is a must (at least in 10' increments.) Easier if you deploy with a windlass, just refer to Mfgr's manual, and find the deploy speed (feet per second [fps], etc.), and just count seconds as you deploy!
 
I usually time it as we anchor so much that marks don't last. If marking though 25' increments is enough

I never understood the point of a lunch hook... who wants his lunch to get cold because you have to reset :)
 
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