During this period your boat can
start moving, whether blown by wind or borne by current, and if other idiots
have come and anchored close to you the scene is set for some nasty collisions.
A friend of mine who singlehands a 27-foot
sloop has been thinking about all this and worrying about the day that she
feels is sure to come when the wind really gets up and starts making the anchorage
so choppy that she’s forced to weigh anchor and seek shelter elsewhere.
Her boat doesn’t have an anchor
winch and she’s not exactly an Amazon herself. Furthermore, she has a weak
back. So she’s wondering how on earth
she would get her anchor on board in a stiff breeze.
My advice to her was to secure the
bitter end of the anchor rode to a fender and throw the lot overboard. Come back to
retrieve it when the weather has calmed down. But that means she’d need
a second anchor and a spare rode if there wasn’t a marina handy nearby. And there’s always the chance that some
unscrupulous bounder would make off with her fender, anchor line, and anchor. I mean, these people who set crab pots are
forever stealing each other’s crabs.
What’s to stop them stealing an anchor?
I have heard of another wrinkle that
might work in some circumstances, and that’s to take the nylon anchor rode aft
to the main halyard winch on the mast.
That would give you a lot more purchase and save a lot of strain on your
back, but I worry that the unfair direction of pull on the mast might bend it
and cause it to collapse on top of you.
If your mast has a hefty section,
or is solid wood, and is keel-stepped, it might work, but otherwise I would be
very cautious about trying this.
One thing I know that helps greatly
in weighing the anchor is a chain pawl on the bow roller, or one that is bolted
to the foredeck. It will also work with
nylon rode, and it makes sure that when the bow rises to a wave, the anchor
line won’t overcome your desperate pull and run back over the roller. The rode can only move aft, into the boat.
You can, of course, reverse the pawl when you want to veer the cable.
My own experience with anchoring has
not lacked excitement. I have crushed vertebrae
in my back on two separate occasions, but the two most difficult weighings were
once in the wilds of Vancouver Island when I discovered after getting back to
the cockpit quite exhausted that the engine was running in reverse gear, and
another time in the Gulf Islands when I managed to raise, along with my anchor,
a rusty old engine block that someone had discarded.
Yes, I did think about installing an
electric anchor windlass, but it always seemed like too much trouble and
expense for a 27-footer. And, what the
heck, I still had about 30 vertebrae to go.
Today’s
Thought
He
who has suffered shipwreck fears to sail
Upon
the seas, though with a gentle gale.— Robert Herrick, Shipwreck
Tailpiece
The student nurse tucked up her
patient for the night.“When the doctor comes to see you in the morning I want you to look cheerful and healthy,” she said.
“But I don’t feel cheerful,” the patient whined. “I don’t want to smile, I feel terrible.”
“Never mind, just do it for the doctor’s sake,” said the nurse. “It would cheer him up no end — and I just happen to know he’s terribly worried about you.”
(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
2 comments:
Why not use a sheet winch?
Yes Robert, that could work, depending on how clear the path is between the bow roller and the sheet winch. There could be a lot of friction where the incoming rode comes into contact with the cabin top or shrouds. There is more likely to be a straight path between the main halyard winch and the bow roller. You might be able to set up a freestanding block on the end of a line to guide the anchor rode around obstructions, but that's starting to get a bit complicated. Better simply to throw the lot overboard.
John V.
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