No one wants to drag anchor – it can put you up on the rocks, slam you into another boat or at best, leave you stranded on a sandy shoal until high tide. Suffice it to say, it always sucky, scary and sometimes life-threatening.
We’ve experienced this phenom twice so far and we’ve only been out a month. The first time, we were in Rock Harbor. And, that time we were lucky enough – we heard a transmission about a dragging boat on the VHF radio “right by that catamaran” and even though we thought at the time we were in imminent danger of being hit by a rogue boat – it turns out the dragging boat was across the harbor and secured again before even coming close to us (different catamaran, luckily!). It was one of those life lessons which shouts at you to pay attention while sparing you from any harm; I like these life lessons.
Two nights ago, we weren’t so lucky. For two days, we had already sat in a lovely and picturesque bay just south of Hoffman’s Cay in the Berries. This little harbor is surrounded by several (rock lined) Cays, there is a significant current, especially when the tides change and most of the harbor is grass (poor holding). But, after three attempts, we anchored just meters from the beach in the soft sand, which Damon dug in by hand on the slope of the shore. And there we sat for two days.
We had some company – on the first day we joined two other Gems and a small sailboat – and then, a trawler moved in comfortably to our west. On the third day, the Gems and the small sailboat left and I watched as another, bigger sailboat sped into the harbor, dropped anchor in the grass and quickly went about coming to shore. I was a bit concerned about how easily they anchored given we tried three different spots before hooking in a nice sandy spot without much current. But, they were comfortably to our south, the trawler was to our east and so we sat in a quaint little triangle in the anchorage.
Now, we have a 35-pound CQR with 70 feet of chain we can put out, D usually dives down on it to make sure it’s set and, up until now, I’ve slept like a baby knowing we should really be over-anchored for our boat (the only other time I felt nervous about dragging in the middle of the night was when we anchored at 2am on the churning Shoals on the Great Bahama Bank where only the GPS assured our holding; man was I glad when the sun came up 4 hours later and we skee-daddled on out of there having not moved a degree from our position).
But, on Saturday night, we expected some significant wind to come out of the north – 20-25 knots – which we have experienced before so no problem, right? And, D dug the anchor in and we were over-anchored, right? Hmmm. It’s hard to say exactly what happened that caused the evenings dragging-anchor shenanigans (was it us, was it them, what did we/they do wrong, and most importantly: how can we prevent this in the future?). But, here’s how it occurred to us at the time*:
7pm (dark): D and I were goofing around in the salon, listening to the wind kick up when I got the urge to go out into the cockpit, you know, just to look around. And, what did I find? All three boats in the anchorage (including us) were lined up side-by-side instead of the nice little triangle with plenty of room to swing we were in for the last 24 hours. It just takes a second to go from “hey, wasn’t that third boat much farther away?” to “oh shit!”**.
7:01pm: D and I grab our head lamps and our huge spot light (thanks again, Dad!), scanned the beach and sure enough we were much further off than where we were “securely anchored” just an hour before.
7:02pm: The trawler seems to be in the same place, but the sailboat is now a beam to us, all 4 aboard (including an infant) are out on deck, headlamps on, scrambling and tugging up their anchor. They have clearly dragged north and are having trouble getting their anchor up. Our hulls are about 50 feet from each other.
7:05pm: D runs up on the bow and lets out scope so we fall behind them. We scratch our heads a bit wondering “how did this happen?”, “what do we do now?” and “where are they going”? With the engine on, I’m able to hold us in place as we trail them a bit to their starboard (their dinghy is probably 15 feet in front of our bow).
7:08pm: After tugging on their anchor, they yell to us that they’re hooked on our anchor and we should come up on them (um, okay) while turning into them (sure, that seems safe-r, not!). But, getting close enough to have the leverage to unhook from each other was the only option so we went for it. D was up on the bow, I was manning the wheel and with our big engine we were able to maneuver safely up beside them and get unhooked.
7:10pm: What now? We were free from the sailboat – and they from us. But, where were they headed and would they/we drag again? Given we had enough of trying to anchor in the grass a couple of days ago, we opted to head back to the beach and stick again in the sand – this time with two anchors out. We had started this ordeal with them on our port, now we were behind them and they were slipping sideways in the current to the starboard. In a flash, I gunned the engines and came around their port, slipping between them and the trawler (whose captain was watching all of this madness with baited breath I’m sure) towards the beach.
7:12pm: We eased up on the beach with that (hopefully) perfect speed of enough juice to keep us under control while making sure we don’t beach the boat (we actually can in a Gem but didn’t want to have to dig it out in the morning when the waves and current pushed us aft-in). Within a couple of minutes we had two anchors in, D had set both by hand (in the dark I might add) and we huddled in the cockpit to recap the play-by-play and figure out just what the hell happened.
And, after much head scratching and some geometric drawings, here’s a couple of likely scenarios:
Scenario #1 aka “It was their fault***”: The sailboat south of us had been slowly dragging all day following the current north. At some point their anchor crossed ours and when the winds picked up from the North, they drug us south, too, so we were all in a line side to side. Then, when they realized they were dragging, they tried to pull up on their anchor and we let out scope, causing us to be behind them. Although it’s still scary-as-hell, we take a little comfort in this scenario because it means our anchor was set correctly and held – our boat, until it was pulled by another boat.
Scenario #2 aka “It was our fault”: Yes, we held for two days anchored on the slope of the beach but then the wind changed, and by a lot. This is when we should have either reset, added another anchor or both. It’s possible that when the when changed we swung around and the anchor lost footing, so to speak, in the slope of the beach. With the wind coming from the north, and a dragging anchor, we would have drug south. But, in this scenario, I don’t get how they sailboat came ahead of us (unless we caught each other and they pulled up on their chain), which leads me to scenario #3 . . .
Scenario #3 aka “It was both our faults”: If we drug south (with the wind after dark), they drug north (with the current all day), then our anchors could have crossed and created the sitch. And, we should both know how to prevent this in the future (them with better ground holding and us re-setting with the changing winds).
There is one other, most troubling, possibility:
Scenario #4 aka “Who knows?”: This is most troubling, of course, because if we don’t know how it happened, we can’t prevent it from happening again. Yes, all the safety precautions in the world don’t stop freak accidents, but you sure as hell try to do everything you can to come out on top.
It should come as no surprise, that after the dragging incident that night it was hard to sleep: both ‘cause we were pumped up from the incident and ‘cause the last thing you want to be woken up with is a dragging boat (theirs or ours, again!).
Needless to say in the morning, everyone moved: the trawler and the sailboat apparently had a really rolly night off the beach and moved across the harbor. We are fortunate enough to have a shoal-draft boat and headed into the hurricane hole of Little Harbor Cay where we’ve been riding out the wind in total comfort (Chester and everyone at Flo’s Place have been awesome!).
Life on the water a funny thing: we can literally see their boats rolling in the anchorage from two miles south in our sheltered cove, but they can’t get here. Yet, last night I couldn’t sleep because I was worrying about dragging again (I’m one of those folks who handle an emergency like a pro, only to freak out later – when danger has passed and I have the space to process it).
I don’t post this to freak you out (Mom, Dad, we’re ok) but to share with you that life on the water takes vigilance, constant education and respect for the wind and waves.
We’re so happy to have another SIBC moment with no real consequences behind us and are on our toes for the next one which I’m sure is around the corner somewhere.
L, D, and Mr. K
*It was dark, there was a crisis, so, no, you have no pictures in this post. But, I think you understand why.
**Sorry for cursing, Mom. But, in this instance, it was warranted. I will put a nickle in the jar next time I’m home.
***Assigning blame to shake our finger at someone was never our intention in determining whose “fault” it was. But, we feel very strongly that figuring out if we or they – or both of us – could have done something(s) differently is paramount to staying out of this situation again.