Tag: anchoring

Anchor angst and the Yealm

We were anchored off the beach at Cawsand. I’ve never been ashore at Cawsand, so the plan was to inflate the dinghy and explore the twin villages of Kingsand and Cawsand. Niki said “are you sure it’s safe for us to all go ashore?” Prophetic words. “It’ll be ok”, I judged.

There was a gentle onshore breeze and the three of us landed easily in the tender. The villages, separated by only a few yards, but which historically had been at loggerheads for many years, were indeed lovely, especially with the decorations up for the queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

Narrow streets with jubilee decorations in Kingsand

At several points we could see Molly from afar and observed that she was still in position. As we walked along the shore, Niki said “I’m sure she’s moved”. We quickened our pace. By the time we had regained the dinghy, it was clear that the wind had increased to about F4 and Molly was dragging.

The waves on the shore were not so easy to negotiate as our arrival and it was a much more strenuous row. We agreed that as soon as we reached Molly, I would go to the bow and Ben would start the engine, whilst niki remained in the dinghy. There were a scant few metres between Molly and the shore when the engine was engaged, but the anchor was soon recovered and the only casualty was poor Niki, who not only had a good soaking in the dinghy but cut her hand into the bargain.

Niki retired below to warm up under a blanket , whilst Ben and I motored across Plymouth Sound. It was slow going, dead into the wind and we also had to contend with crossing the track of a magnificent fleet of flying offshore racers heading for Galway and thence Shetland.

Eventually we reached our planned lunch stop and dropped the plough anchor for the last time in Cellar Bay at the mouth of the Yealm. By this time I had very much decided that my plan to eventually replace it should be brought forward to a status of immediate.

Lunch in Cellar Bay at the mouth of the Yealm

We enjoyed a pleasant lunch and siesta before hosting Dermot, our friend and fellow Crabber 26 owner, who lives nearby and sailed out to see us in his Drascombe Dabber. Sadly rain prompted him to return home but we elected to motor up the Yealm despite the steady rain. It’s a most beautiful spot, even in the downpour. We motored up to Noss Mayo, though we didn’t stop for a pint!

Our return to plymouth sound was another motor session, after we had motored into a strong wind all the way to the Yealm, there was no breeze at all for our return. After that plod, we were happy to arrive at Sutton Marina. We enjoyed a meal of Morroccan Lamb with butternut squash, which Niki had prepared earlier and cooked in our Thermal Cooker.

Plymouth ho!

The first day of our journey East dawned bright and sunny. I moved Molly off her mooring in Mylor for the last time; the majority of our gear was stored in Russell’s van overnight, so the first order of the day was to fetch and stow the provisions. Meanwhile, Ben and Niki procured pasties in Falmouth and I picked them up from Custom House Quay.

The forecast was for very light and variable winds, but in general from the north. This turned out to be only partly true. I was expecting most of the passage to be motoring, but as we set off there was a light wind from the NE so we sailed out into Falmouth bay, accompanied by Russell in his Cornish Yawl, Lucy. With sufficient offing, tacked to follow the shore a mile of so off. As we watched this Cornish coast slip past, we were very happy to see the wind gradually veer to a SE, allowing us to adjust our course to make it past our first significant headland, The Dodman.

The wind dropped somewhat and so, not long before the Dodman, we fired up the engine and motored across a flat blue sea with our sails little more than decoration. After about three hours of motoring, the wind had filled to the point we were able to silence the motor and enjoy a blissful sail in the sun right up to Plymouth sound.

I have not been confident in the holding of our 12kg plough anchor, standard equipment on the Crabber, so we laid the anchor with some care in Cawsand bay. When we motored astern to dig the anchor in, there was little resistance from our ground tackle. Perhaps the anchor had landed upside down; we tried again and convinced ourselves that the anchor had dug in. The winds were light and we had lots of scope out.

We shared a lovely meal aboard, which Niki had brought pre-prepared and frozen, helping to chill the coolbox, and retired to bed early. However, the peace was shattered at about midnight by the anchor alarm. Ben and I considered our position: it was pitch dark, though we knew there were some moorings nearby, past other anchored boats. The wind had shifted to offshore and was not strong. We had not moved relative to our anchorage companions and also it was low water, so there was maximum scope.

In the end, our decision was to increase the radius of the anchor alarm and go back to bed. If we were dragging, then the alarm would wake us and we would be moving offshore. This proved to work out for us and the rest of the night passed uneventfully.

Anchor Alarm

I enjoy anchoring overnight- one of the pleasures of boating is to find out of the way places and enjoy some peace and quiet. However, in the back of my mind, there is always some concern about whether the anchor will hold, particularly at the turn of the tide, and this can make one’s sleep rather light.

I was always confident in the holding of the rocna-style anchor on our previous boat. Aurora, but the holding of Molly’s pin is unknown to me. I have been using an app called Anchor Alarm to monitor my position. Particularly useful at night, it will alarm if the boat moves out of a predetermined circle. I usually test this by leaving the anchor alarm active when lifting, to check it does the job. I also leave the phone connected to power overnight, as the GPS has a tendency to drain the phone battery.

There are many such apps to choose from, but the features i was looking for are the ability to set the anchor position after dropping the pin (I’m too busy at the time!); to allow for anchoring depth and scope; the app must be able to work in the background, so I can use my phone for other things and finally, some form of graphical display of the boat’s position over time is useful.

After some research, I found Anchor Alarm fulfils all of these criteria. It’s not free and it doesn’t have the ability to remotely monitor the boat position (ie if you go ashore whilst anchored), but I felt I didn’t need that feature. The display is simple and clear and most importantly, it provided me with a sound night’s sleep!

Edit: A few days after writing this, I anchored in St Mawes and the anchor dragged. I think it was due to an improper set of the anchor and/or not enough scope. In any case, the anchor alarm earned its fee because it went off when I was down below and gave me time to start the engine and lift the anchor before we dragged onto another boat.

Helford sortie

Left on my own, I decided to revisit an old haunt up the Helford river to try anchoring overnight. I’d not sailed Molly solo yet and was also not confident about being able to reef. However, the light winds provided ideal conditions to try things out – the auto helm makes everything straightforward, freeing me up to pull the string. In fact I very much enjoyed the sensation of the boat helming herself and me able to look around, move about the boat and make adjustments without going off course. I know all this is old hat, but it’s new to me!

I had a most pleasant sail across Falmouth Bay, towards Manacle Reef on full main and staysail. As the wind increased from F1 to F2, increasing weatherhelm was evident, but I decided not use the jib until I had a bit more experience handling the boat and neither was I able to get the reefing to work yet. I did not make a good job of tacking on this trip, and I kept finding myself in irons (presumably not helped by the weather helm – that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it) and the boat kept losing way in the light airs.

When I reached the mouth of the Helford, I experienced difficulty furling the staysail again and ended up dropping it on deck. Lazy jacks for the main are also going on the To-Do list! I motored up the river, past the multitude of moorings to Tremayne Quay. This is a lovely stone jetty and boat house which was built for a visit of Queen Victoria that she never made, and is a very fondly remembered spot we visited in our previous boat, Aurora.

The chart shows green here, but there is a “hole” outside the boathouse and I calculated that there would be at least 2m of water in that spot at low tide. Low tide was also conveniently before bedtime, so I could sleep soundly afterwards, knowing that there would be no need to check the anchor was re-set at the turn of the tide. In the event, the flow was gentle enough that the light breeze kept Molly in the same spot all night.

It’s a very peaceful spot to stay, beyond most of the traffic and also easy to land, with pleasant walking in the woodland on the W shore. However, inflating the dinghy was a job for another night, I decided. Whilst in the calm I had a look at the reefing lines and decided that the difficultly in reefing was mainly down to friction in the single line system. I saw from the Crabber Club forum that I was not the first to experience this and instituted a simple change recommended there. I had bought some strong stainless rings from Trago before I left Falmouth and tied a pair of these through each of the reefing eyes. This means that the reefing line, instead of passing through the reefing eye, passes through the ring. This had the effect of swapping the reefing lines over in the cockpit, and makes it significantly easier to pull the reefs in. There is still a lot of friction for second reef and time will tell if this is a permanent change, or perhaps I will go a stage further and purchase some (much more expensive) low friction rings. In any case in the longer term I will need to make a tidier job of my current arrangement.

I was pleased to find my calculations correct; I did not touch at low tide and I spent a restful night on the river. In the morning, I made an earlyish start to leave before low – although there is enough water at low where I was anchored, I was not sure if I would get down the river at that time. Weighing anchor roughly 2hrs before LW, I weaved my way keeping to the deeper part of the channel and soon found my way to deeper water. There was almost no wind, so I motored over to St Makes. I dropped the pin in less than a metre of clear water at Cellars Beach, opposite Place House, a most elegant 16th Century manor, in which King Henry VIII had one of his multitude of marriages. I chose this spot not just for its outlook but to be out of the wash of traffic and spent most of the day working. What a great spot for an office!

In the evening I returned to Falmouth and inflated the tender for her inaugural voyage, rowing ashore for a pleasant evening with Ben.