CHAPTER 7 Dragging anchor


The first sign that a vessel is dragging her anchor is when her head fails to pull back to weather at the end of a swing. If she isn’t looking up to the wind from time to time, she is either dragging or about to drag. The best way to be certain your anchor is holding is to find and keep checking a casual transit (two bushes, one behind the other, would be fine) that lies abeam of the direction in which you would drag. In a wind-rode berth, the transit line would run square across the breeze. If no transit is available, a compass bearing on a single object is a poor but acceptable substitute, but the object should be sensibly close, because any change in bearing lessens with range. At 3 miles, a shift of 1° might mean you have already dragged 100 yards.


Dragging anchor


Lying to two anchors Wind-rode


Vessels with plenty of hefty ground tackle will only rarely be obliged to resort to extra anchors, but there comes a time when everyone needs additional reassurance and all the holding that’s available. If wind-rode, the most effective way is to lay out a second anchor in a ‘Y’ form from the bows. Anchored on warp, this can be done by motoring up to where you want to lay the second hook, gathering slack on the first cable as you go, then dropping the ‘pick’ and falling back onto both anchors, but it is often simpler to do the job as you would if your first anchor were laid on chain.


Transit Holding


Here, the second anchor (sometimes called the ‘kedge’), is lowered into the dinghy. All the cable you intend to lay is lowered in with it and the bight made fast on board. This is vital if the kedge is on chain, but you may get away with paying a rode out over the yacht’s bow. As you move away from the boat in the dinghy, pay the cable out behind you until it is all gone, then drop the anchor carefully over the side. This can be a dangerous manoeuvre because of the possibility of becoming snagged with the anchor and carried down with it, so care needs to be taken.


Once back on board, heave up on the new anchor until the catenary of the original one begins to drop, showing that both anchors are taking the strain.


Wind-against-tide


At best this is an uneasy scenario at anchor. At worst, it can give rise to the direst of circumstances as the boat tries to lie head-up to the tide and stern to the wind, then starts sailing ahead under bare poles straight over her anchor, perhaps even tripping it out. The situation is exacerbated when several boats are lying close together. Disparate characteristics can make them career into one another; even similar craft can get into trouble.


Many GPS receivers can be set to emit a sound signal if your position changes more than a selected distance. On a dark night with not even a compass bearing to help you this is of some use, but it cannot approach a transit for practical value. If you set it to a small enough circle to tell you when you start moving, it will challenge your sanity by going off every time you swing. Set it to a wider circle, and it may not advise what’s happening until it’s too late.


MANUAL OF SEAMANSHIP | 81


Anchoring


Dragging


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