A Windy Anchorage
17 April 2018
Sure enough, on Friday it began to blow. After a quiet night, during which I had seen the phosphorescent streaks of fish in the water, the wind picked up after dawn. By mid morning, I had gusts in the mid 20 knot range and sustained winds in the teens.
I thought about rowing ashore, as I wanted to explore the beach community. I probably could have rowed the dinghy upwind, although tethered to the boat it was lifting off like a hovercraft in the bigger gusts. I was concerned about leaving the boat at anchor with this type of wind.
For the non-sailors reading this, anchoring is a subject that engenders a lot of discussion among cruisers. However, the principal concepts are that one uses a high quality anchor sized for your boat. The chain acts as a weighted anchor line and, under most circumstances, much of it lies on the bottom. A long curved arc, called the catenary, describes the path from anchor to boat. When the wind picks up and drives the boat backward, the heavy chain lifts off the sea bottom acting as a sort of spring. This keeps the boat from pulling sharply and directly on the anchor. It is usually recommended to have about 5 times length of chain as the depth of the water that you have set the anchor down in.
This was the first test of my ground tackle under these conditions. I have a Rocna anchor (considered very high quality) and 180 feet of chain. I initially anchored in about 20 feet of water and let out about 100 feet of chain. Note the accompanying picture. The top of the yellow line at the peak of what looks like an inverted mushroom shows where I dropped my anchor initially. Below is the extent of the swinging at anchor. I wanted to let out more chain, but someone came in after me. He anchored close enough and behind that I would worry about swinging in to him were I to do so.
Luckily, I had plenty of essentials on board (food, water, and books) to sustain me. I left the iPad chartplotter visible so that I could check while below that I was still swinging at anchor. About every hour, I checked on the anchor and the bridle that relieved pressure on the roller. I ran the engine for a while each day to keep the amp hours in he battery over 80% and keep the refrigeration going.
During some of those windier periods, I wondered what it must be like out in the Sea of Cortez. If the wind gusts to the high 20s inside this protected anchorage, with big hills to the north of me, it must be really strong outside.
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