When I arrived in Talamanca, Ibiza, I selected my spot to anchor very carefully. A good 70 per cent of the bay is covered with weed, the rest is sand. I have no idea how a 25kg Rocna sets on a bed of grass and weeds, nor did I want to find out.
The wind was set to pick up to 25kts through the night, and I wanted to go out for a beer in the evening rather than worry about dragging anchor in a crowded bay. That, and my windlass was still broken. There’s nothing like having to retrieve your anchor by hand to make you think more carefully about where it’s dropped.
I found a nice area just four meters deep and away from the weed, and manually let out the anchor and rode. I normally go for a 5:1 scope, but there was an unattended mono near by on a mooring ball, so it was bound to swing differently. I managed to let out 12 meters before attaching the bridle, which gave me another few meter lengths. I then left another three meters of chain weigh that down before tying off.
I enjoyed an even out, and once back drifted off into a lovely deep sleep, only to be woken two hours later by commotion going on in the bay. The wind has picked up and at 3.a.m. two monohulls, and a catamaran had found that were dragging anchor. Cue a series of head torches, whistles, and commotion on the desks of nearby boats. I checked my anchor alarm. All was good for the time being.
Mucho viento
The winds continued into the next morning, which turned into afternoon, and early evening. Casually relaxing in the forward cabin, I thought nothing of it until I heard a scraping sound. “ah am I dragging my anchor?” Before I could get to the companion-way I heard a crash and the sound of broken acrylic.
Once on deck I found a 15.5 meter monohull had lost it’s anchor, turned beam on, and impaled itself on my port-side bow. The crash was sound of my bow penetrating one the windows on the mono.
“This isn’t good” I thought to myself. But I wasn’t angry or even annoyed, just concerned with trying to minimise damage to both yatchts. I called out to wayward boat’s skipper, but he was nowhere to be found. For the time being I was on my own. My plan was to moor the boat along-side mine and wait for the skipper to return.
A number of people in the bay had spotted what was happening. Two jumped in their dinghies and came to help. One was a friend of the skipper, and called him to let know what had happened. Turns out he’d gone for lunch in town.
One anchor two boats
Together we managed to moor both boats bow to stern, while waiting for the skipper’s return. The wind continued to gust, and my anchor was now carrying the weight/windage of two vessels. Without a working windlass, I was hoping everything would hold, and was tempted to use the engine to easy the burden. Seems I didn’t need to. The anchor and chain held just fine for the 25 minutes or so it took for the captain of the other vessel to return.
On his return he thanked me profusely, for helping to save his ship, and handed me a bottle of Bacardi. Can’t have a sailboat with some rum on board right? Now who fancies some drinks?
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