Well, we will call our first real test of our ground tackle a scary success. Over a two-night period (November 14th and November 15th) there was a sizable system that came into our anchorage in Pelican Bay at Cayo Costa State Park. Sustained winds were around 25 knots with gusts up to 35 knots over two nights, forces higher than we’ve experienced at anchor before. The forecast did not indicate the severity system until the last minute, so we decided to stay in this very protected anchorage. Our anchor held well and did not budge during the entire ordeal.
Utopia's Ground Tackle
So, what is our set up? We have a next generation spade anchor (see photo) with 245’ of 5/16” chain. On top of that, we have a built-in snubber on Utopia and an extra Mantus snubber for backup. A snubber basically takes pressure off the windlass and imparts some stretch in the anchor rode so the boat and chain doesn’t jerk when under load. We discovered that the Mantus snubber seemed to keep the boat from jerking and changing directions as noticeably than the built-in snubber so we will plan to use it when we see high forecasted winds.
We also have a backup anchor on the bow of Utopia. It is a large CQR anchor and for this storm we affixed one of our back up rodes (200’ of three strand) ready to deploy if we happen to start dragging. In addition we have a very large storm anchor (super, oversized Fortress anchor) buried in the bowels of the boat. This anchor is for when things really hit the fan. We did not even take this out for the storm since we felt pretty comfortable with our setup.
We also have an anchor alarm on our chart plotter and then one on our iPhone that will alert us (loudly and jarringly) if we start drifting out of a designated circle around our anchor.
Storm Preparation
So whether we are preparing for a storm or just dropping the hook to anchor for a few days we use the same process of setting our ground tackle. As a little guide we do the following:
Pick proper location for anchorage based on expected wind and wave protection.
Do a pass through of the anchorage and view other boats and their spacing and how Utopia sits (drifts due to wind in current).
Pull into the wind (or into current if it is more impactful than wind) then drift just until you stop and start to drift back.
Slowly drop the anchor and rode starting out about 4 to 5 times the depth of the water, as you drift backwards. This needs to be done slowly so you don’t pile a bunch of chain on top of itself. For example, if you were in, say, 10’ of water, and your boat deck is 5’ above the water, you would drop 75’ of chain ((10’+5’) x 5)).
Attach a temporary snubber (to relieve pressure off the windlass) and back into reverse in increments up to around 2000 rpm of the engine. If you stop moving backwards your anchor should be well and truly set.
Let out more chain until you have achieved about a 7:1 scope and attach the main snubber. For this example, we would add 30’ chain bringing the total to around 105’. Obviously, the deeper the water the more chain you let out.
Do one more back down in reverse on the chain.
Set up an anchor alarm. We presently use Aqua Map and the anchor watch on our chart plotter. These systems allow you to set an alarm after the anchor has been set by capturing your current GPS location and then indicating how much chain was paid out. A circle is created on your screen and an alarm will sound if you drift out of that circle.
Turn your engine off, have a beer and sit in the cockpit and see how the boat sits.
With this set up, Utopia’s anchor held like a rock. Having said this, since this was our first big storm at anchor, we did not get too much sleep.
When we learned about the incoming storm, Sondra and I discussed what our plans were if we actually started dragging anchor. With the prevailing winds direction we had about 500’ behind us before we would have run aground if our anchor dragged. If it did drag, we believe it would of occurred somewhat slowly (unless the whole system snapped). This was our plan in case the anchor began to drag:
If our anchor alarm went off, the first thing we would do is make sure we were actually dragging. GPS can be unreliable at time so we would first determine this. Or perhaps, we just dragged a little bit and resettled.
If dragging slowly, the first thing we would do is turn on all the deck lights so we can see (our high winds were predicted to occur at night) and let out a lot more chain. Chain is heavy and as the angle gets smaller between your boat and the anchor (i.e. lots of chain) it take a lot more power to pull the anchor. Note that this would require removing the snubber before letting more chain out.
If we are still dragging after this we would 1) start the engine and put in forward to take pressure off the rode and 2) deploy the second anchor and let out as much line as possible
If still dragging, then start the process of getting out the third anchor. If we get to this point we really made a mistake since we shouldn’t have been there in the first place. That third anchor is probably only meant to be deployed in the event of a tropical storm and should already be out, and we should be off the boat.
So with that I think we have a pretty good storm plan in case we drag anchor. It all starts with finding a good, protected spot to anchor in the first place and this location at Cayo Costa was almost full protection.
Possible Improvements to Consider
After sitting nicely through the storm, we ended up with some points that we need to implement into our anchoring plan. These are:
Is our present anchor alarm the one we want to go with? This requires your iPhone app to be open at all times, which requires charging for a long storm period. There may be a better way to do this, and we are still exploring.
When should be do an anchor watch? An anchor watch means someone is awake at night actively observing how the boat sits and the condition of the hold. This would allow quicker reaction and allow at least one person to sleep knowing the other is watching out.
Our wind instruments can be set up to track past winds and we should change our trend history to more than one hour. We would have liked to have seen trends and the general up and down of the wind velocity during the night. We will change it to track a 12-hour trend so we could look back and see how high the winds got throughout the night. Early in the evening, we saw one gust of 35. And most of the winds were between 20 and 25 kn.
We are gaining experience with each storm. Sondra had difficulties sleeping earlier on the trip, near Clearwater when gusts were 25 knots. Now she is comfortable with those speeds. Baxter appeared to be nervous during the big blows. I imagine that as time goes by, the storm I am speaking about will seem like a typical scenario.
When to head to a marina? Last but not least, we are not sure when we should just bug out and go to a marina during a storm. In Hurricanes, we typically have a few days to figure out where to go but with winter storms, they can seem somewhat benign and then blow up into something more with little notice. We need to get better at making that call.
I think we have learned some things during these recent storms, and certainly have more things to learn. Stay tuned for future storm related stories as we move south.
Photos from this past week are here:
23-47
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