Yep - we dragged!

[SVRocinante]

We’ve been anchored in San Domingo Creek, MD for almost 2 weeks now. Winds have been relatively light, never really got above the high teens, but we were holding well... all chain, good scope (7:1) snubber, etc.

Last night we got hit by a severe thunderstorm - sustained high 20s with gusts into the 40s & 60s. I certainly did not expect to drag as we did... while not life threatening, we could have had serious damage to our vessel.

Heck, I think we might have even pulled out completely & reset. Fortunately we did not hit anything BUT are now substantially further south & east of our original position waiting for high tide this afternoon to get back to deeper water.

I won’t even mention anchor brand at this time, other than to say it’s a new generation anchor; not really looking to debate which anchor is “better”, we rode out a tropical storm for 2 days using our old CQR in the Long Island sound & didn’t move an inch.

At the moment, my best guess as to why we dragged is that the sudden and extreme change in wind speed & direction pulled the anchor out - we had been lying with our transom pointing north all day and the storm blew in from the north.

So, here is the obvious question;

What could I have done differently?

Is the holding such in this area that this was to be expected under those conditions and I simply lacked local knowledge? Active captain reports “excellent” holding (we’re anchored by anchorage #4 on their map)

As you can imagine, it was not fun standing at the helm, less than 40ft from the shore under those conditions for close to an hour with the engine running hoping the anchor would continue to hold. To say the least, I’d rather avoid doing so again the future!

Please do not hesitate to blame me. I am, after all, the person responsible for my vesssel & those aboard it, but please be specific.

As always, any & all thoughts, opinions, comments are greatly appreciated!