Having spent a very challenging day getting around to Doubtful Island Bay we were glad to get our anchor down after a couple of attempts....blessed weed!
After an hour or so of observation and then relaxation we were satisfied that everything was holding. The Bloke retired below to claim a well deserved shower. I was up and down from cockpit to cabin reinstating items that had migrated during Zofia's gyrating trip. I don't exactly know what made me sense it but I had noticed on the last couple of glances that we were swinging quite widely. Being a 'plastic fantastic' production boat with a 'wide arse' as the purists would say, we do offer quite a large windage profile, and we were certainly being pushed about in the 25-30knot bullets. A look through a hatch confirmed the situation. Easy Tiger, why cant I see Easy Tiger? Wowsers, we were on the moooooooove!!! Easy Tiger and Urchin were bow to the beach. We were side on and getting further from the beach at speed, assisted by the wind. I assessed what might be in our path ... so good not to be on a lee shore. An urgent bang on the bathroom wall with an announcement ...."We're dragging!" was met by the Blokes reply "Sure are, how'd you know?". Preoccupied with his ablutions we were possibly not talking about the same tackle. "No, no we are dragging ANCHOR!..... Put on some clothes... I'm starting the engine!".
The rest happened in slow motion.
Only one of headsets was working. The Bloke had accidentally left his on for a couple of hours and could only transmit and not receive. Curses! Bravely I opted to hear what the Bloke had to say and deliver him hand signals instead from the bow. First job was to retrieve 50m of chain which by now was at right angles to the bow roller and would remain jammed until we could get the bow and chain more or less aligned. Lacking in feedback, the Bloke was quite agitated. "What's happening?", "What's happening?"After what seemed the longest time, all the chain was in, so was the anchor buoy and anchor all draped in lashings of weed. As fast as I raked the weed off with my fingers ready for redeployment, the weed streamed backwards all over the boat like an upturned bowl of spaghetti.
The first attempt to drop anchor again met with failure. The wind was howling. I ran back to the helm station to tell the Bloke we'd need his balls on the line.... "I want you to creep in as close as you can beyond the line of weed, I WANT that white sand. OK?".
With that clear and terrifying instruction we inched forward. "1 metre", "0.8", "0.5".... This measurement is beneath our keel. We sneaked over the weed line. Bang, I nearly crushed the button on the anchor controller.....anchor going down + 15m of chain! I hurled the anchor buoy and rope over the bow. The wind pushed us back. SNATCH! Thank God! We rolled out the remainder of the chain. We hoped we had nailed it.
Returning to the cockpit we looked at one another. The whites of our eyes seemed larger somehow.
We discussed what we'd do if we failed to hold this time. We agreed that we wouldn't try to re-anchor but drift out into the bay... Hopetoun was 40nm due east with nothing in between and we could throw out the parachute anchor and drift at .5nm per hour all the way to Hopetoun.
The team would probably impose a penalty for dragging anchor AND breaking the start for the next leg but let's just let them know that we are OK and what the plan is.
Maree captured some of the excitement on camera while the crews of Easy Tiger and Urchin stood helplessly by! It must have looked desperate to watch but it was OK. Really, it was OK.
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| The water doesn't look look rough but the picture below is what the wind looks like on open water! |
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| Going down.... anyone? |
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