What to do if anchor drags?

[Mike OReilly]

Hope all is well. Sounds like you’ve hung in through the worst. At this point it’s unlikely you’ll drag — unless you get a big wind shift as the storm passes by. Watch for that.

I wound’t drop the tiny dingy anchors — that would do no good. After all this is over it’s probably time to assess your ground tackle. No point in saying this earlier, but I too would junk the CQR in favour of a new-gen anchor (rocna, mantis, spade, manson, etc…). Get the biggest one you and your boat can reasonably manage.

And look to getting at least one other anchor which can be deployed from the stern. The yaw angle of your boat sounds pretty extreme. Tests show it is at these exteme points that the anchor feels the greatest strain, and is most likely to become compromised, so doing what you can to reduce the oscillation is good.

I always run snubbers in a bridle fashion. Boatie’s suggestion is excellent. And it sounds like you’ve already done well reducing windage. Sounds like you’re doing well.

Now, hopefully this passes so you can get some sleep .

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

Please don't consider this as advice, just a question to the knowledgeable people in the group that might help. I assume this is a monohull, if you were to set up some sort of bridle as wide as you can, would this reduce the swinging and be beneficial?

Yes you can, if you take a line from a mid ships cleat to the anchor rode, you can use this to pull the bow to one side. This makes the boat sort of sail to one side and while there will still be some swing, it’s usually way less and only to the one side, where a single line lets her go to both sides of center.

It’s I believe the way the Pardey’s laid to a Storm anchor to cut down on the swing

[wingless]

Please don't leave us hanging, what is the status?

[Locquatious]

We were in Great Harbor, Peter Island BVI, when we lost hold. We habitually spring out of the bunk upon every major blow. We had two anchors out. The Perkins started immediately and we pulled away, 6 inches from hitting another boat. We moved to the center of the deep harbor.

The all chain rode of one anchor was wrapped three times around the nylon rode of the other anchor. The rain was pelting hard and heavy. I had to keep my upper lip protruding over my lower lip in order to breath. Hypothermia was soaking in, despite the tropical weather, and we had to take the time to get more clothes on. She was at the wheel, keeping way against the wind. I was below in the dinghy at the bow trying to untangle the anchors. The boat was drifting backwards toward a large catamaran. We pulled ahead. The catamaran also pulled ahead. One of our anchors had snagged the catamaran's anchor chain, setting them adrift in our care, as well. The catamaran wind load on our bow required more speed for us to point into the wind. The speed made it harder for me to hold the dinghy near the tangled anchors.

Eventually we untangled our anchor lines and before letting the catamaran's rode go, we woke their crew. They had lots of chain and just re-anchored in the depth. We circled in the wind till early daybreak when we could see an empty mooring.

If your anchor loses hold, deal with it. Some things are difficult to predict and cannot be pre-advised.

[cygnussailor]

With 40 knot winds and a sand or mud bottom, if you haven't dragged yet you're not going to. You're biggest problem will be when you try to retrieve the anchor. We had a similar situation but it was only for about one hour. When we tried to pull the anchor we had to take in every link of chain we could with my wife, a large dog, and me at the bow. We then walked to the stern and stayed there a few minutes, back to the bow and take in another couple of links, back and forth many times before the anchor broke loose.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by cygnussailor

With 40 knot winds and a sand or mud bottom, if you haven't dragged yet you're not going to. You're biggest problem will be when you try to retrieve the anchor. We had a similar situation but it was only for about one hour. When we tried to pull the anchor we had to take in every link of chain we could with my wife, a large dog, and me at the bow. We then walked to the stern and stayed there a few minutes, back to the bow and take in another couple of links, back and forth many times before the anchor broke loose.

Since I have a stupid big anchor and have set it as hard as I could to ride out a couple of Hurricanes that thankfully have missed, I now have a little bit of a technique of how to recover a deeply buried one.
Do as you say, pull every inch of rode in you can, but then put her in gear and let her ride over the anchor, then neutral and she springs back, then forward again. Pretty quickly it levers the anchor up, or at least it does a Rocna.
You don’t have to gun the throttle just a gentle forward movement and let the boats weight do it.

[Gaia]

Good experience. You ought to be able to get a Spade no problem in Europe. Good luck.

Jim

[Dougtiff]

First of all, i would suggest you upgrade to a better anchor, i have dragged my genuine CQR half way around the world over the year's, consider a ROCNA, or similar new age anchor, they cost way less than the old CQR's and Danforth's, and do a much better job, aside from that, have a standby ready to go, on the foredeck to kick over, or throw in a tender to set if needed.

[wingssail]

Seems like you made it through the night and hopefully the storm passes. I know how fearful it is to have land behind you and a storm pulling the be-jesus out of your anchor.

When in conditions like that, or any doubtful anchoring conditions where dragging could be catastrophic, we take a few measures:

Use the biggest anchor. We carry a storm anchor for a reason. It has been used only once or twice but it is comforting to have it down.

We always set our anchor with strong reverse power, with one foot on the chain where it goes over the bow. You can tell positively what is the condition of the bottom and the set of your anchor if you do that.

Set an anchor alarm and if it is really scary, stand an anchor watch.

Set an exit strategy. This means which direction to steer if you decide to leave. In the darkness it is easy to get turned around.

We always raise our anchor and reset if it is dragging. Always. If we can't, we leave.

[hd002e]

Thank you all who have contributed and helped me ease my mind last night. It was a very tough night and the morning was even worse, I was exhausted and collapsed during the easing weather during the day. Tonight the winds are even worse and I am just running on fumes. So, here is an update:

At around 5AM yesterday with the sunrise the 12m motorboat directly upwind from me started moving towards me. It passed within 5m and drifted off onto the rocky island shore behind me. I called the coast guard and the owner. Boat spent a few minutes crunching onto the rocks and then got blown off into the open sea. The owner aomehow arranged for two fishermen to go out with two boats and they retrieved and came back with if. There is a 12” hole above the waterline and the swim platform is crushed but besides that the boat looks to be in good shape. I literally dodged a bullet!

[hd002e]

Yesterday as I was trying to ease the tension off the anchor, I started the motor and put it in gear. I noticed that the swing arc became longer with the wngine in gear so I started steering as well. This went on for a bit and I was able to keep the boat heades straight into the wind by keeping my eyes on a landmark on shore. The gusts were well into the 50s and in one particular gust I decides to open the throttle more to keep up. Combined with the sound of the wind and commotion from the boat heeling I must have given too much throttle and noticed on my chart that I had moved upwind from my usual arc. I let go and the boat went sideways as the rode slacked, the dinghy went under the boat amd we all drifted back with the wind until the anchor line caught us again, whipping us back into the wind. That was probably the worse of it and the ground tackle held up. Since the sun was up, I could see all of this happening and observe the amount of give inthe nylon rode, this gave me some more confidence.

[Don C L]

Lot more than a bullet, and good thing that boat is now gone from your upwind. Any others up there? Can you tell now if you moved at all? (Got any reference points on land to check? It can be very helpful to note different sets of two objects on land that line up, like range markers, to see if you may have moved.) Right now if it is calmer, get some sleep if the prediction is for another big night ahead. Keep the faith! Seems like your anchor and rode are all doing what they are made to do!
In your position, I'd probably look to a rigging a riding sail if it is calmer now. It's just a strong flat piece of cloth, or maybe a storm jib, typically lashed to the backstay and down to a stout block and to a winch in the cockpit to provide a rigid rudder to steady the boat and cut down on yawing.

[hd002e]

I have anti chafe gear around the nylon rode where it touches the fairlead and the bow pulpit. But with the swings the line is still rubbing back and forth on the fairlead lock. I eased the line a foot to see how it looks like inside the anti-chafe gear and the normally shiny nylon had gotten a bit fuzzy. Now, I have made a habit of easing the line a foot every two hours.

Yesterday morning I dove on the anchor and that also gave me some confidence: the rode/chain splice is hovering just above the seabed, beyond that I can see about 30’ of chain and the rest 120’ or so feet is buried deep into the sand. The anchor? No way to find where that is. I took that as a good sign.

The angle with which the rode lies looks pretty good and with the gusts, there is little to no movement of the chain on the seabed. I feel better about the whole thing!

Tonight, the winds are back and the predictions say that we will enclinger even higher winds then yesterday but I feel better prepared mentally amd the boat has been ready for the storm since 9PM.

[Mike OReilly]

I’ll second Don’s sleep advice. I do my best to get sleep when faced with ugly anchoring nights. After I’ve done everything I can to anchor well, make sure there’s no chafe going on, and I’m confident I’m not dragging, and no one is going to drag onto me, then I crawl into my berth and put in ear plugs.

I figure if I end up on the rocks I’d rather be well rested to deal with the crisis, rather than staying up, fretting, and not really doing anything.

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by hd002e

I have anti chafe gear around the nylon rode where it touches the fairlead and the bow pulpit. But with the swings the line is still rubbing back and forth on the fairlead lock. I eased the line a foot to see how it looks like inside the anti-chafe gear and the normally shiny nylon had gotten a bit fuzzy. Now, I have made a habit of easing the line a foot every two hours.

Yesterday morning I dove on the anchor and that also gave me some confidence: the rode/chain splice is hovering just above the seabed, beyond that I can see about 30’ of chain and the rest 120’ or so feet is buried deep into the sand. The anchor? No way to find where that is. I took that as a good sign.

The angle with which the rode lies looks pretty good and with the gusts, there is little to no movement of the chain on the seabed. I feel better about the whole thing!

Tonight, the winds are back and the predictions say that we will enclinger even higher winds then yesterday but I feel better prepared mentally amd the boat has been ready for the storm since 9PM.

Good news on the anchor, sounds all good and good that you are doing that chafe prevention too! Get some sleep!