I'd originally put in some of what I'm about to write on another post but now I feel that it deserves it's own post because of what happened and how it could have gone so much worse.

Last Sunday, a big 83 foot boat called Challenger 93(sponsored by Fisher Paykal) came into the anchorage sporting the flags of the ARC sailing rally. They came in right in front of us and dropped their anchor right on top of a mooring buoy that's owned by a local dive and snorkel company. They keep their boat moored there every night and leave a paddle board attached during the day to mark it as "occupied". Once this boat had dropped their anchor(on a rope rode instead of chain)they started dropping back to set their anchor. Here's where it first started going bad. First, you stay away from any moorage buoys as there is a great chance of getting your anchor fouled in the block at the bottom.

As they dropped back, they came closer and closer to the bow of our boat. I sat myself down on Puff at our bow and watched. This boat has ten people on board and it seemed to be managed by all of them conferring instead of by a captain. I indicated that I felt they were too close to us by holding my hands palm to palm indicating the closeness. When they finally stopped backing up, the stern of their boat was about 20 feet from our bow. I yelled out to them that they were too close and needed to move. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to understand English. The group confirmed again at the bow and one of the crew men jumped over board with a line and headed for the mooring buoy. He clipped it to the buoy and the crew slowly pulled the boat as close to the buoy as they could. To keep their boat as light as possible, they carry very little chain and use almost exclusively a rope anchor rode. Once they were at the buoy, all was fine. They were now over 100 feet from Zephyr. We sat back and relaxed as many of the crew members stripped off their clothes and jumped into the water and swam around the boat. About 1630, the local that owned the buoy returned in a very nice big inflatable boat with another inflatable boat in tow. Conversations ensued with the local telling the crew on Challenge 93 that they needed to move. He wanted his mooring back. Again, a conference was held at the bow. No one person seemed to be in charge. In the end, the decision was made to disconnect from the mooring and drop back on anchor with a shorter length of line to their anchor keeping them now about 50 feet off our bow. They refused to move. A short time later, the local boater returned and hooked his boats to the mooring and paddled toward shore. Now Challenger 93 was back on anchor and everyone on board climbed down into their dinghy and in two loads headed for shore to party leaving no one on board. When the dinghy came back after it's first trip, I motioned to the man in the dinghy to come over. I told him we were not satisfied with where he was and that the scope on his anchor rode was maybe 2 to 1 instead of a good 5 to one. His comment, yelled at me was "everything is fine" and he wouldn't discuss it any more and took off for their boat to get the last of the crew.

With not much we could do, I dropped another 80 feet of anchor chain off the front of our boat putting us a better distance from them and at a 7 to 1 scope of anchor depth of amount of line let out. It's what's considered the "norm" for a sound anchor setting. By 2000, it was blowing and blowing big time. Winds were up into the mid 20s and growing. We headed below after watching their boat not only visibly but also on their AIS for a good hour, coming back in deck from time to time to check out the situation.

By 2200, the winds were up into the 30+ range with the highest we saw was 45! At sometime during the evening, they managed to return to their boat. By 2300, we stopped checking and went to bed. Just before midnight, Tracy looked out one of the ports in the stern cabin and their boat was now beside us instead of in front of us!! We rushed out on deck and Tracy began grabbing boat fenders and attaching them to the lifelines. It was now obvious that their anchor had lost it's hold on the bottom. We both watched as this big boat slipped by our starboard side, about 20 feet away. Their anchor line was still stretched out in front of the boat. We both looked to the left and saw that their anchor had snagged the mooring buoy at the base and was dragging it as well as the locals two boats with it--right down on us!!! We got lucky in that we were being pushed around by the wind and just happened to be at an angle where both boats slid by on one side instead of the locals boat on one side the Challenger 93 on the other. That would have been disastrous as we would have had one boat on each side and no way to get them off. We watched as they all headed west in winds now in the 40 knot range. As they passed us, we only saw two of the crew on deck. Heaven only knows the sobriety of the rest of the crew. ARC boats are known to be big party people. Pigeon Island sits just a half mile west of here so they had to be careful and stay away from it. Luckily, they went around the north side dragging the locals boats as well as the entire mooring assembly. Not sure what happened out there but in the end, they attached the locals boats to one of the national parks boundary buoys and took off south for parts unknown. They didn't even try and come back to the anchorage. As light as they like to travel, they may not have carried a second anchor.
In the end, we finally went to bed but had enough adrenaline pumping in our system that it took a while to calm down. We'd tried to tell them it wasn't safe but they were having nothing of it.
A little after 0800, the local boat owner showed up and paddled out to his two boats and tried to get them untied and back to shore. It took a good hour to get everything set and he slowly motored back into the harbor, not to happy I'd guess at having lost his mooring.
I wrote an email to the company that puts on the ARC rally hoping they might do something but boats like this need a wakeup call that their attitudes will not be tolerated. They are no better than the rest of us out here and worse, obviously than many others.