[Rhodes22-list] my overnite shakedown that shook me

[Bill Effros]

Pete,

If you had to pull your boat back to where you started, your anchor 
didn't drag.

If the line was still properly cleated on the bow, you either didn't 
pull back on the rode, or you swung on the rode into the mangroves.

If you cleat from the stern, and using a snatch block pull the rode back 
to the bow cleat before it enters the water you can vary the angle at 
which the boat lies in the water relative to the anchor.  Done properly 
this can often eliminate fishtailing or hunting.

Bill  Effros

petelargo wrote:
> Two weekends ago I did an overnite sail to see what that was like. This was
> my first intended overnite. I had another nite I spent out in the Florida
> Bay backcountry but that was unplanned. Interestingly it was in the same
> area as the Flying Pig grounded, off Content Keys. Thats another story. 
> This plan was to leave saturday around noon , but trips to the store and
> back to get this and that ran the leaving time to around 3:30pm. I had to
> find kenyon canisters for the gas stove and wanted to upgrade to a 6 gallon
> gas tank as I was having air flow issues on the factory 3 gallon.  We loaded
> everything into the v berth for clothes and bedding and got the food tucked
> away and took off out of Plantation Key Colony mile marker 90.  Winds were
> 10 kts out of NW and switching to NE later that nite. We sailed up to
> Mangrove marina in Tavernier and picked up a friend living on a houseboat
> and did a sunset sail that was awesome. I decided to just stay in the Marina
> and throw anchor. The winds did switch and I kept checking the anchor. I
> found it hard to sleep as the winds picked up and I was fishtailing like
> crazy. I keep thinking that it might loosen the anchor.  But I kept checking
> and we were ok. I finally fell out hard around 1am. Suddenly, around 2am my
> wife pushed on me and said we banged into something. Well I jumped out onto
> the deck faster than superman and sure enough we had slid about 100 ft into
> an underwater mangrove tree that was sticking out of the water about 1 foot. 
> I am sure I woke up quite a few people with some cursing and slamming into
> shrouds etc. I finally got the engine started and we could not pull the
> anchor up so forward I went and dragged that baby back to where I was
> initially located. I knew that I would not sleep at all that nite. So, we
> called our friend on the houseboat and asked if we could tie up to her. I
> was far too awake at that point with my adreniline rush and thats when I
> found out that due to the caprock, the mud and turtle grass lots of people
> have anchor problems in that marina. The houseboat had 4 anchors set up
> including two mooring anchors and one tied to the mangroves. She said she
> didn;t sleep well for the first month she was there. I felt better.
>
> Next day I talked to my sailing buddy who said that the dingy sailers in
> europe use a V method off the bow with two anchors and that eliminates 80%
> of the fishtailing. I know there was a anchor discussion here recently which
> I will read as well.  But I don;t mind telling you that I would consider a
> "sneak" anchor that ties off to the mangroves by adding a line half way up
> the rode and using that to tie off to mangrove root while anchor weights it
> down so as to be unseen. (illegal I believe)
>
> So another anchor is on the shopping list with a few other items that we
> determined would make life easier after this first test. Let's hope for some
> sleep on the next outing. And yes I have my first solid scratch mark on the
> port side. Damn.
>
> Pete
>