If you plan to do any bareboat charter sailing, you can be certain of at least one thing: you’ll be having to ANCHOR somewhere, sometime during your charter. So, it pays to review your favorite books, notes, and other sources for anchoring tips and techniques before you go. While some trips require you to freshen up your language skills, smart bareboaters will refresh on anchoring before you go. If you end up like me, you’ll be glad you did.
“Drive that boat like a bus”
Where we sail most of the time, anchoring is relatively technical (deep water, rocky islands,kelp,wide tidal ranges) but we have the advantage that there aren’t many people to battle it out with for a nice spot. The area is quite remote and if you show up by 4pm, there will still be a spot in some of the nicest anchorages.
As a result, I have had very little experience with a Med tie approach to anchoring. It just doesn’t happen where we cruise. At all. So, it was an interesting trial by fire while my wife and I had the opportunity to do a Med tie between two large boats, backing our 43 footer into 18 knot trades, with just a couple days experience on the boat.
Fortunately, a fellow bareboater volunteered to ride aboard to offer an extra set of hands to fend off (if trouble reared it’s head) and provide some experienced coaching. I’ll never forget standing on the forward side of the starboard wheel, facing astern, cranking up the reverse to get some speed (to make the rudder/fin keel work a little better), and as my “coach” said, “drive this baby like it’s a bus! Just stick it in there!”
In hindsight, I wonder if he’d already exceeded his daily rum ration? Whatever the case, it worked. Lindsay dropped the hook, on cue, as we backed up to the dock, and we pulled in like we had done it a hundred times before.
However, the moral of the story is this: don’t assume that your normal, local cruising and anchoring experience will provide you with all of the skills and knowledge you need. A little time spent – even on unexpected anchoring-related topics – could really pay off when you need it.
Get your kedge on
A few months before our trip, I just happened to come across an article in a sailing magazine about using a kedge. An auxiliary anchor, it’s useful for limiting the swing of a boat at anchor or also to walk a boat across the anchorage as needed. While I won’t get into the specific details of HOW to do it, using a kedge certainly helped us sleep better while anchored in a windy, poor holding anchorage with limited space with two charter boats flanking us a bit too closely. Dropping the kedge off the port bow and cinching it in help buy us a little comfort through added distance from one boat and the knowledge that we had a second anchor biting to ensure we didn’t drag. This can be especially important on typical bareboats where the anchor tackle has very little chain and mostly rode.
Coincidentally, on the same trip, I saw a skipped charter use a kedge off of Mustique to help get the bow of the boat pointed more directly into the swell rolling through the bay. Sizable and pretty uncomfortable, the winds and current seemed to keep boats almost parallel to the sea swell when made for a rocking, rolling, mooring. Pulling the stern out to point the bow into the oncoming swell with a kedge helped reduce the roll. After spending one night in that swell, I wish we had done the same!
The right attitude goes a long way
Finally, there’s more to anchoring than simply dropping the hook in a decent spot. When approaching an anchorage with many boats trying to enjoy the same spot, a little grace and respect for fellow sailors goes a long way. The easiest tip I can offer is remember the “Golden Rule” – anchorage unto others and you would have them anchor unto you! Here’s one of my favorite pics from a charter we once did. It doesn’t even do justice to HOW close they actually were… and were then rude when asked to find a different spot.
The web is full of helpful anchoring tips and fundamentals. Here are just a few:
The bottom line is that there’s no need to be intimidated by anchoring during your bareboat charter. However, taking just a little time to review the range of anchoring techniques, approaches, and etiquette before your charter will most likely come in handy.