Yowzers! An Anchor Drag

There's a school of thought that 'If you think it; do it'. This thankfully doesn't apply to the general world or it would give licence to a lot of sociopaths, rather it's what happens on board in the context of managing  your boat. For instance, if one senses a change in weather conditions whilst sailing and suddenly think 'Oh, maybe we should reef the sails', the idea is to do it immediately because the second time you think it, it's probably already too late!

Screenshot of our GPS enabled Anchor Watch program.

We were originally just swinging about in the tide.

The weather forecast for Iluka/Yamba was for strong winds overnight and we discussed how much chain we had out and whether we should drop out some extra rode. We decided that our existing 30m in 3-4m of water was a more than adequate ratio. Feeling satisfied, The Bloke turned in while I watched the next exciting instalment of Vikings. The wind chirped up to 30kn waking the Bloke. We checked our GPS enabled Anchor Watch program and confirmed our position and noted that our anchor chain was by now stretched out. Hmmmm??? Chain's no good in the locker. Let's drop out another10m and sleep soundly, we thought.

On with the motor to enable the anchor winch, headphones, deck light and head torch. Off with the snubber. This required 1-2m of chain to be pulled in to release it. Ooooops, we were in the middle of a squall and pulling on our anchor. This activity was just enough to unsettle the anchor flukes and KAPOW off we shot like a stone in a catapult!

 

Luckily, the anchorage was almost empty meaning that we didn't collide with another boat. We chucked out another 10m to halt our drag and then assessed where the heck we were relative to all potential hazards. It was a black night of course and we were very disoriented. We decided that 50m of chain was a much nicer number and re-positioned ourselves and re-anchored during a lull in the squalls.

Yup, definitely a case of "Chain's no good in your anchor locker" and "If you think it once, just do it straight way - before it's too late"!