Leaving an anchorage in a hurry

[Brilliant425]

My solution for this extremist situation, was to splice about 30 meters of three strand floating nylon rode to the bitter end of the chain. On our 42' sloop we use 10mm chain and the nylon rode addition was 3/4". With this combination, you can let out all the chain you have plus the floating rode. Think of it an extra long shock absorber. But if you still have to go, just cut the line. After the storm you can return and find the floating rode and recover the anchor.

The nylon rode was secured to the boat at it's the bitter end and carefully flaked in the anchor well, so it could run free it ever needed. The nylon is susceptible to UV damage, but it very rarely saw the light of day. A plus, it repelled water and stayed fairly clean in the anchor locker.

[pbmaise]

It was standard practice on my vessel to motor towards the anchor during a severe blow.

When I was in suspect weather or an open weather spot, I was very careful owing to the windage of my vessel to maintain crew aboard.

In fact in one port I went and hired two crew from a large commercial vessel to babysit my vessel because I wanted to take all the crew to shore for dinner. I trained them how to start the engine and motor towards the anchor before being able to enjoy my dinner.

Someone wrote it is impossible to motor towards the anchor in most vessels with the winds hit 60 knots. I disagree. I was able to watch my anchor chain go from straight taunt to loose. The weight of the chain was also helping pull the vessel forward in addition to the engine.

100 meters of chain 3/8th with 70 kg Rocna

And...Yes...you can be SOL if you are near large vessels that break away and head towards you. There is little to do stop them therefore, you may have to anchor rather far from the shore to be certain another vessel doesn't damage yours.

[Rothblum]

Unless I've forgotten an awful lot of my fluid mechanics, the force does NOT vary as the cube of the velocity. Wind pressure =1/2*density*velocity^2 (Bernoulli, I think). Maybe you are thinking of power, which is force X velocity, and maybe that is the relevant parameter, if you are wondering if you have the power to go upwind in a big wind.

[PineyWoodsPete]

Originally Posted by Rothblum

Unless I've forgotten an awful lot of my fluid mechanics, the force does NOT vary as the cube of the velocity. Wind pressure =1/2*density*velocity^2 (Bernoulli, I think). Maybe you are thinking of power, which is force X velocity, and maybe that is the relevant parameter, if you are wondering if you have the power to go upwind in a big wind.

As with any force, it varies with the square of velocity.. Doubling wind velocity increases the force by 4X - or tripling, 9X... or going from 20 to 80 knots wind speed, 16X.

[argonauta1]

Yes, agree with others. Under the conditions you describe with them prevailing either briefly or indeed longer, if well anchored, I would choose to stay put. If worried about dragging, if you have space enough from others one could let out more scope. As well, the engine idling in gear would take some pressure off the anchor assembly but needs watching closely to avoid overrunning the anchor. Sounds like you were well hooked with no dragging. With quick wind direction changes over 50knots, there are going to be lateral, loads on the anchor chock. Overall, your set up worked and you did the right thing by staying at anchor.

[capn_billl]

60 knots at anchor is tough, but I wouldn't want to go anywhere in those conditions either.

If I have a choice, I try to anchor behind a piece of land, preferably with trees, and have at least a shoal between me, and open ocean.

[Jenneau Owner]

Sorry I have not read the previous three pages, so others may well have given similar or contrary advice.
Cruising in the Med and latterly in Greece I carry 80 meters of 10mil chain plus a further 30m of warp.
We spend most of our time at anchor and ridden out many storms.
We always use a long snubber with a snap shackle. (Have bent quite a few).
Often motor foreword to take off the strain.
If I did have to leave in a hurry it would be quite easy to let out all the chain and cut the warp with a knife which I keep in the companionway. Thankfully it has not happened yet.
If I had time I might even remember to tie a fender to the warp and retrieve the hook later ��⚓️

[accomplice]

I have used the tactic of motoring ahead while anchored in a strong blow. I have found the available thrust to be more than sufficient, but the task was more difficult than one might think. The part I found difficult was determining the correct amount of forward thrust and the appropriate heading. Once the wind catches the bow and blows it off, countering with the right amount of thrust and rudder becomes even more challenging. Add to this that, to a first approximation, the rudder requires water passing over it to turn the boat, and that the attachment to the anchor can prevent the boat from moving how it would if untethered, and one can start to understand the difficulty. I suppose just putting on a little bit of forward thrust will ease the load on the anchor and not step into any of the other issues. This is what I vow to try next time.

[Symphony]

Get a riding sail/ anchor sail! Easy fix.
You can make one if handy, or buy a FinDelta riding sail which I did for my Tartan 4100. Fantastic boat but in even light breeze it would hunt back and forth trying to sail away. Eventually it would pull sideways enough to break out the anchor and we’d drag. With the FinDelta the boat stayed exactly set like in cement. We easily rode out 30 knot blows, even 45 kt gusts in Block Island one night. The harder the wind blew the more centered and pulling on the anchor- and this was a 45# CQR! I could anchor just about any kind of bottom, once i had some kind of grab on the bottom we put up riding anchor and went to peaceful sleep.

My Tartan had 45hp Yanmar and we could steadily hold our place in squalls with bare poles, Long Island or Caribbean. More than once winds hit 60kts for a few minutes of truly noisy mayhem, but i could always hold the boat in position until the squall was done, then unfurl and sail on.

[sailian89]

Short Snubbers are not worthless. They take the shock off the windless and transfer it to the cleats. Used a lot with boats 40 to 80 feet that that have all chain anchors roads.

[OneBoatman]

Sounds like your tackle was pretty good to hold you under those circumstances. Normally a properly rigged snubber, or bridle would taking the strain off the chain and prevent it from damaging the ears of your bow roller. But it seems you may have just been lucky on the one hand in that the anchor held, and perhaps your snubber released due to the violent motion. Many swear by the effectiveness of simply using a stout line tied around the chain using a rolling hitch. I've been use the claw type for the past nine years and it has worked well to date. It would be worthwhile to explore methods which reduce the tendancy of your vessel to "sail on its anchor" as you've described.

[jo_sail]

Coming back to the title, I find it important to always be able to run, quickly, cut anchor with some line as floating indicator if really required in an emergency case. Long enough floating rope on the bitter end of chain or a long enough snubber could do it. Also a tiny anchor buoy, which additionally helps to assess the amount of sailing on the anchor or helps to approach it precisely for a normal way out in bad conditions.

Also, I use to always draw the „line of escape“ with degrees heading on it from the anchor position fix in my paper chart. It’s part of being prepared for a good sleep in a night at anchor. It could happen that things get ugly and visibility really bad at the same time. You want to be able to immediately run safely out of a bay on compass information only, if needed, e.g. drifting towards rocks, or other boats drifting to you, with no time left for assuring safe electronic navigation, …

I saw it once on another boat, where the anchor went of the ground, loosing scope on the windward slope of of the bay, so that it did not grab again. They were extremely lucky, that then their anchor stopped itself on the opposite slope of the bay and the boat just 20 m off the rocks in lee. Without this luck, it was a matter of seconds to escape and steer the boat in the safe direction of escape.

[Timlich]

Others have said the same thing but it’s always good to hear a message reinforced….
We live aboard our 42’ monohull currently located in the Mediterranean. Our setup is 90m chain secured to the boat at the end with 5m rope. We have 30m of 6mm braid with a small buoy on the end coiled and at the ready in the anchor locker. (It’s unlikely that we are ever anchored in more than 20m) Our strategy if we need to drop our ground tackle is to run out the chain, secure the 6mm line to the end, cut the tail rope if it’s an emergency (we have a knife also mounted in the anchor locker) or untie if we have enough time. The buoy and line are simply so we have a chance to recover the ground tackle once we are safe. In an emergency I’d ditch the ground tackle in a heartbeat and put as much distance between us and the lee shore as is possible. Note that the most likely scenario of ditching the ground tackle is if the anchor or chain is irretrievably snagged on the bottom rather than ditching in a blow such as you experienced. In this scenario we would aim to up-anchor as fast as possible and assuming everything is working ‘get out of Dodge’. No plan is failsafe but in our experience, being prepared with various options is the best strategy.

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by HeinSdL

Last year in Sardinia when anchored we were hit by quite a violent thunder storm. It was a dead calm, balmy afternoon, with unstable weather evident higher up the mountains but nothing seemingly moving our way. But then within a space of a minute or so we went from 0 to 60 knot winds and horizontal hail. I started the engine to have it running in case of a lightning strike and to be ready should the engine be needed.



Then, for about 10 minutes, the boat 'hunted' around the anchor (not sure what the word is to describe it but it felt like the boat was beating upwind, from port to starboard and back). Couldn't do much to stop this with the engine so sat there in freezing hail which was also actually quite painful, only wearing shorts.



And then it stopped as quickly as it started. Down below was more or less chaos (we were having lunch....) and the starboard flange of the stainless steel anchor chain guide on the bow was bent 90 degrees. Other than that we lost the seat of the dinghy with the dinghy mainly having been airborne during that time. With praise to the delta anchor which... did its job, very well.



Now I see that Corsica was hit by particularly violent weather yesterday morning, see for example https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/...ls-five-people.



So I am rethinking a bit of how (un)desirable it is to be anchored with really no way to unhook.



Obviously on the one hand it is best to sit it out. But what to do if 1) the anchor starts to drag, anchored off a lee shore and/or 2) other boats are beginning to drift around with a danger of getting hit. I would not mind being able to unhook and get out.



On board I have 30m chain and 60m anchor rode (fine for most Med applications) so my thinking is the following. Typical Med anchor depths are 5 to 8 meters so the chain is sufficient. My approach might be, in future, to use a bridle which can be released under high tension with the chain disconnected from the rode (but still attached to a strong point) and readied to be jettisoned with a buoy or fender attached to the end (first chain is thrown out attached to fender, then the bridle is untied). Questions:



1. Is there a need for such an 'emergency release' given events which others may have experienced;

2. Is motoring into 60-100 knot winds even feasible? I have a feeling on some boats yes, on other boats no whereby I do think I am on a 'yes' boat.



Would be interested to hear opinions on this.

60 to 100 kn? You aren't going to motor in to this sort of storm, why would you even want to?
Depending on the shape of the mountain you can get , what I call, a wind bullet.
A bit like a venturi effect.

[SuW]

Originally Posted by ItDepends

...Remember, the force exerted by the wind increases with the cube of the wind speed, so 70 knots pushes almost three times harder than 50 knots. This is one of the many reasons getting stuck off a lee shore in a hard blow is such a terror to sailors...

Can you give a reference for the "cube of wind speed" formula?
I might be wrong; I thought the formula for the force (P) was for the wind velocity (V) squared:

P=cV²
where c is a constant depending on your system of units.

Also:
50 knots wind speed - 375 Pa wind load
70 knots wind speed - 778 Pa wind load

A little over twice as much force.

You're not wrong about the frightening effect of just the power of two, though...