WAG THE BOAT

[cuisto]

Spent a night at anchor in a stunning little sandy bay near my home marina last weekend. All went well but should be better and suggestions might just help.

Wind was very light and was from the lake (we were tucked in behind a small 8-10 acre island) I set two anchors off the bow at about 80 deg.

The boat wagged around but nothing problematic except that the anchor lines would catch on the running lights as the boat changed angle to wind.
Can anyone suggest where to run my lines to prevent this?

Also..Wind shifted and became quite strong through the night, shifted 180 degrees and picked up about 12knots. Is this a real problem or after pulling out the anchors by reversing them will they just reset in the new direction??

They are Danforth anchors.

Thanks
Scott

[Tom Spohn]

You might want to go to the "Practical Sailor" website and download (for a small fee) their anchor reset tests to see how the danforth compares with other anchors. For me, they work just fine. Setting the anchors at 180 degrees (Bahamian Mooring) is a good option if you know the wind/current will change that much. The running light can be moved out of the way a little by installing a BWY anchor roller, or an anchor roller from your favorite marine store with the running lights remounted on the side of the boat--see Duane Dunne's system.

[mike]

The boat wagged around but nothing problematic except that the anchor lines would catch on the running lights as the boat changed angle to wind.
Can anyone suggest where to run my lines to prevent this?

I've heard it mentioned here that some people attach their anchor lines to the bow U-bolt thing.

Also..Wind shifted and became quite strong through the night, shifted 180 degrees and picked up about 12knots. Is this a real problem or after pulling out the anchors by reversing them will they just reset in the new direction??

They are Danforth anchors.

This discussion came up in a recent thread. My thinking was that if it was a gradual 180 degree shift that allowed the anchor's flukes to remain pointed down as the anchor swung around in the horizontal plane, it would probably reset. But what worries me is a potential sudden shift (like an incoming thunderstorm) that causes the boat to pass over the anchor and flip it. Usually when I pull my anchor up, there's sand/mud jammed in the flukes, and I have to repeatedly drop it into the water a few times to clear it... my concern would be that, in the flip scenario, the anchor would simply scoot along the bottom with the flukes pointed uselessly towards the surface. Perhaps after a while, with water washing over it and with it bumping across the bottom, the flukes would become unfouled and allowed to pivot down and bite.

Also, as a combination of the above 2 scenarios... what if the wind gradually shifted 180 degrees, but was not strong enough to pull the anchor around the horizontal plane. If the wind picked up later, the anchor would be pointed in the wrong direction and could flip.

As Tom points out, setting 2 anchors 180 degrees apart (both attached to the bow) is cheap insurance if you are worried about wind shifts. We've always just used the 1 anchor (unless we needed to hold the boat in a certain position, in which case we'd set out a stern anchor as well), but after reading more about it here, I'll probably do the Bahamian style mooring next time we're anchored overnight, especially if a wind shift is predicted or if thunderstorms are likely.

--Mike

[Frank C]

I keep the centerboard raised, mainly because it's so noisy. But twisting the two rodes is a common result of using two anchors at the bow .... happens nearly every time for me. It's a real mess if I hang the mid-hull rocker-stoppers too deeply!

I wouldn't want to attach solely to the boweye. Seems to me that the side-pull of a Mac sailing on its anchor could easily bend it. A very recent posting mentioned great success using a bridle. Try searching on that word.

[Jack O'Brien]

Here's the posting:
http://macgregorsailors.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=3565
On July 6 entitled: Sailing at Anchor

[ken lockhart]

Try hanging a bucket on about 10 ft of line off the stern, this will reduce the sailing at anchor.

Ken

[Tom Root]

I clearly remember the nightmare a while back when anchored in Cat Harbor (The Isthmus) at Catalina. I put four anchors out, and still it looked like the boat just wanted to sail all by itself....disturbing, as other boats were nearby, and I made sure I had my insurance card handy!

We went to the dock, and when someone on shore looked at the boat and said..."WHo's boat is THAT!!!" I merely said, "don't know!"......I tied up on the string line the very next day.

I'll try some of the tricks imparted here. I will say that I have used the method of cleating the anchor line, and running an open eye brass carabiner type clip on the bow eye. It lessened but did not ellieviate the problem completely!

I will try a bridle, and maybe that bucket trick may work???

[Andy26M]

A good old bucket does work a bit, but probably not as good as a set of rocker-stoppers. Then again, the bucket costs about a third of what they want for a single rocker-stopper ... Some day I will see something like a rocker stopper that is not actuall one, and costs a few bucks each, and then I'll have a set. So far I have not hated the swinging bad enough to drop ten bucks a piece for a set of plastic discs, though.

Anybody ever tried drilling holes in the middle of several cheap tin pizza trays and stringing them on a line?

The sailing back and forth is not problematic from an anchoring standpoint; provided you have enough rode out, the elasticity of the nylon will make it so that the anchor feels very little of the action. The issue is if it bothers you or if there is a little swell that makes it uncomfortable at one end or the other of the swing.

This swinging is a function of the shape of the freeboard/bare mast of the boat and the wind/current interaction with it. Hence, the way to really limit it is to provide a second point of attachment - either by using the bridle idea or by putting down a second anchor with a different attachment point than the first.

- AndyS