My sailing confession
In fact its not a sailing confession , but an anchoring confession.
One nice sunny day in the 1990's we anchored up for lunch in Newtown
River using our 'lunchtime anchor', an 8lb 'fortress-style' Jimmy Green
special. The tide was flooding and we put out plenty of warp. We also
carry a 15lb CQR, which we normally used for proper anchoring. It is a
little less accessible than the kedge so we dont always bother with it
while we stay on the boat for lunch. As the GK24 yaws and rolls
horribly at anchor, we trail buckets to stabilise the boat, increasing
the tidal drag. We decided to change to the CQR after lunch.
During lunchtime, some wine was consumed and the decision was made to
stay in the river overnight, but we forgot to change the anchor.
Some time in the early light of dawn, I was woken by a firm but
insistent tapping on the
side of the boat. Wondering who it was, I went outside.
Who Put That Motor Cruiser There ? What Idiot Was That ?
Then I looked at where we were and realised that we were about 50
metres near the entrance to the river. I was the Idiot and we had
dragged onto them.
Fortunately the early morning was calm, and we were able to hold the
boats
apart on the tide with the force from the rudder. So I tried to quietly
row the CQR uptide in the Redcrest but with the drag of the warp,
I could only get about 20 metres uptide. Not enought.
So I ended up putting the outboard on the Redcrest, and with that at
full throttle , I managed to pull about 50 metres of warp uptide.
We transferred the tension to the CQR and found that fortunately we
hadnt fouled the power boat's anchor with our dragging anchor.
Went back to bed after having woken up several other people. We tried
not to but the tide was running too strongly.
Page © Mike James 26th Feb 2005
Comments to:
mike@hamble.demon.co.uk