Anchoring & Mooring

A Question Of Scale—Anchor Size

by Colin September 1, 2009
OVNI 435 Pèlerin at anchor with a closeup of the anchor bow roller, chain and snubber.

This summer will remain in my memory as one for strong winds and great sailing. By the time we reached Scotland in early July we had just about seen the last of the light winds that we had enjoyed in West Cork, and a more mixed regime had set in. No matter—these were ideal conditions [...]

Shorefasts And Line Reels

by John October 1, 2009
An Easyroll line reel with Dyneema rope.

Question: A few months ago we published a photo essay about Polaris, the custom Hutting 54 especially designed and built for cruising remote places, owned by our friends Michael and Martina. Since then several people have asked about the line reels shown in the photographs. I passed these questions on to Michael and got the [...]

Mooring Failure, The Loss Of Kantele

by John February 1, 2010
Kantele, a Saga 40 sailboat, lost after a mooring failure at Sint Eustatius.

On 28th December last year a beautiful Saga 40—an English design not to be confused with this boat—was lost when she went ashore at Sint Eustatius in the eastern Caribbean when a mooring provided for yachts by the local marine park, STENAPA, failed in what looks from the photograph to be benign conditions.

Swans Island And Anchoring

by John June 17, 2010

We are finally out of the boat yard after the re-power and so I thought I would celebrate with a Photo Short.

Shorefast Systems

by John June 27, 2010
Aluminum Expedition Sailboat Polaris Tied Into Her Winter Home In West Greenland

Question: We’re about to build a shoreline system. We have two reels from Easyroll that can take about 150 m of 12 mm line each. I’ve seen the system used by Polaris, and it looks very solid, but my concern is, obviously, the cost of using Dyneema [Spectra]. As far as I can see the [...]

Taking The Strain

by Colin July 22, 2010
One of our new snubbing lines and hook, with a standard hook for comparison

During our time in the Rias of Galicia we’ve enjoyed many comfortable nights at anchor. But as is the case in any area surrounded by hills we’ve had plenty of wind at times, rolling down off those same hills, or funnelling down the valleys. We had one memorable night where despite the fact that we [...]

Q&A Handling Hybrid Rope & Chain Anchor Rodes

by John September 7, 2010
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Question: [edited for brevity] We have a horizontal windlass with a chain wildcat on one side and a rope drum on the other. How can we handle our hybrid secondary anchor rode made up of 50 meters of chain and 40 meters of rope with this set up?

Anchor Swivels, Just Say No

by John September 12, 2010
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We have never seen the point of anchor swivels. In our opinion all they do is add a potential point of failure to the anchoring system and provide no benefits in return.

Storm Preparation, All Chain On Deck

by John September 29, 2010
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On Morgan’s Cloud we are always looking for new and better ways to minimize the chance of damage when riding out storms or hurricanes at anchor or on a mooring. And given that we  have spent a lot of time in the high latitudes and further that I kept boats on moorings year round in [...]

Anatomy Of An Accident

by John December 3, 2010
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It was 4:00 am on a black early morning anchored at Cape Lookout Harbour when Phyllis and I were awoken by a crash from up forward followed by a sickening scraping sound. A quick look out the companionway showed the outline of another sailboat reversing away from our bow. The outline looked a lot like [...]

Chafe-Pro Review

by Phyllis December 9, 2010
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Our chafe material of choice in the past has been to take old rags and wire tie them to the appropriate place on the dock line or mooring pendant. However, this tears (literally!) through a lot of rags, uses up a lot of wire ties, looks a bit disreputable, and takes some finagling to undo.

Q&A, Anchor Trip Line

by John January 28, 2011
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Question: I am looking for suggestions on how to best rig an anchor trip line?

Things to Know About Anchor Chain

by John May 11, 2011
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One of the cool things about running this site is that gear manufacturers are now beginning to recognise the purchasing power and general clout that you, our readers, wield. So now when I ask a whole bunch of questions about a manufacturer’s products—many of them dumb, I’m sure—they are more likely to find the time [...]

Anchoring Decisions

by John August 3, 2011
Chart showing tracks made by Morgan's Cloud in a West Greenland anchorage

[Written on July 30th] Last night, for the second time in less than a week, we got hit with much stronger winds than forecast, generated, we think, by the proximity of the Greenland icecap.

A Windlass That Makes The Grade

by John August 7, 2011
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In my last post I wrote about us having to anchor twice and weigh anchor once in gale and strong-gale force winds with higher gusts. In this post I’m going to write about the capabilities you need to have in a windlass when the anchoring gets tough. And these features are not just for those [...]

Halloween Storm, Choosing an Anchorage—Part 1

by John November 4, 2011
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As I write, the still gale force remnants of the Halloween Storm of 2011 are howling in the rigging as Morgan’s Cloud tugs at her anchor and bucks to the chop here in Great Salt Pond at Block Island. I sometimes call cruising, particularly when tired and crotchety, “death by a thousand decisions”. And deciding [...]

Rocna Versus SPADE, Strengths and Weaknesses

by John November 23, 2011
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Our position here at Attainable Adventure Cruising Ltd has been, and continues to be, that the Rocna and SPADE are both great anchors that have made previous generation anchors like the CQR and Bruce obsolete. But that leaves the question: What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two anchors? To try to at [...]

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