Dragging Anchor!

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We arrived at Osprey Marina, just past in Myrtle Beach on October 19. We spent the past few days with daughter Sandi, son-in-law Matt, and grandkids Josh and Rose. It was a great visit. We did a lot of things and played a lot of games with the grandkids.

Now, it's October 26 and time to return to our travels. We’re up at 0645 to say good-bye to Matt and Joshua who are off to work and school respectively. The rest of us, Sandi, Rose, Anna Marie and I, are off to Osprey Marina where we will rejoin “SUNSHINE” to continue our trip south.

We enjoyed breakfast at the marina grill while we watched the weather channel. The weather is questionable for the next several days, and we are debating a “go/no go” decision. The sky is overcast and there are showers in the area. The wind is predicted to be in the 20 to 25 knot range, but it is calm in our protected marina.

We made the decision to “go” at 0930 and at 0935, the engines were running and we quickly slipped our lines. As we were backing out of the slip, we took a photo of a motor vessel bearing the name “Sea Paws,” a name that we would encounter for the next two days, although on a different boat. Our “SUNSHINE” had been known as “Sea Paws” by her previous owners.

We motored down the chocolate milk colored waters of the Waccamaw River. This stretch of the river is a large cypress swamp and the scenery is most picturesque, if you like looking at tree lined banks on both sides. The river is deep with some stumps along its edges.

For a few hours, the tide was foul, but it turned favorable before we reached Georgetown and Winyah Bay. This area is reminiscent of the Intracoastal Waterway stretch of the Cape Fear River that we did a few days ago. As we transited the bay, the winds picked up to 10 knots and then to fifteen knots out of the south. Eventually, the wind reached 20 knots, but the seas along the Intracoastal waterway remained flat with a few ripples. Some “snot” kicked up in Winyah Bay, but it wasn’t a bad passage. While traveling in the bay, we were passed by five boats, two trawlers and three motor yachts. One of the stinkers gave us the worst wake of our trip to date. Our “roll” knocked some things (none were breakable) off the galley counter.

The weather was overcast for the entire day and we had several periods of showers throughout the day. The temperature was comfortable in the low 70’s, the coolest weather we’ve had to date, but the high humidity made it a muggy day.

We had our heavy anchor (33 pound Bruce, 20 feet of chain and 115’ scope for the rode) down in the South Santee River at 1645 hours (mile marker 420 on the waterway). The evening was getting a bit chilly, and we were both a bit tired, so dinner tonight was a can of Hormel Chili with fresh rye bread. The meal wasn’t up to our usual standards, but considering that we were tired and didn’t want to take the time to fix a proper meal.

Our recent sailing adventures have included some TV time. We have a small DVD player on board and have a small library of sailing movies. One of our favorites is the A&E network series, “Horatio Hornblower.” We settled back to watch the episode about the “fire ships.” We’ve seen it several times, but never grow tired of the story. We are intrigued by the formality of speech, among other things.

On this evening, our viewing pleasure was interrupted by a “thud.” We were both up like a shot to find that we were beam to the bow of “Brie Sea,” one of four other sailboats in the anchorage. The admiral of “Brie Sea” was most apologetic about dragging into us. She offered that they had been having difficulty anchoring in areas with strong currents (ED. That’s just about every anchorage in South Carolina and Georgia). She offered that her boat seems to sail around the anchor rode witch is then "captured" by the vessel’s winged keel. I told her not to worry, no damage was done to either boat (not so much as a scratch) and that (horrors!) I believed it was our boat that drifted into them.

I fended off while the captain of “Brie Sea” fired up his engine and backed off. We then back off and tried to raise our anchor. “SUNSHINE” carries an anchor on each bow; one is a 33 pound Bruce with 20 feet of chain and the other a 25 pound CQR with 50 feet of chain. As mentioned earlier, the Bruce, had been deployed. We knew there would be strong currents and an overnight current change, not to mention 20 knots of wind. In conditions like this, we rig a bridle that runs from a point on the anchor rode of the Bruce to the opposite bow. This creates an inverted “V” (when looking from the bow of the boat) and its purpose is to limit the amount of “swing” of the boat.

To get the anchor up, our first order of business was to de-rig the bridle. It and the anchor rode were as tight as a guitar string. It took some boat maneuvering and strength to get enough slack to remove the bridle from the starboard bow cleat. Once this was accomplished, we were able to gain some anchor rode and eventually had the anchor up and secured to roller.

We picked out another spot to anchor and this time we opted for the 25 pound CQR primarily because it has 50’ feet of chain. We reasoned that the rode got caught on one of the stub keels. The change in geometry caused us to drag. We hoped that 50’ of chain might remedy this situation. We let out 130 feet of scope since we had plenty of swinging room.

We had the anchor down and the engines off about an hour after the “thud.” We were both unnerved by the experience. It is the second time in my 20 years of cruising that I’ve had an anchor drag. The last time was in late 1980’s or early 1990’s when daughter Shelley and nephew Chuck, were anchored in New Your Harbor, between Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Our anchor dragged when the current in the river changed direction.

Recalling this incident, we settled back to finish watching “Hornblower,” but I kept a much closer eye on our position relative to the other boats and the shoreline. I continued hourly observations until the current changed again, after which, I settled in for a “three hour nap.”

During the second half of our “Catboat Adventure (2005 – 2006),” we replaced the rode with 250’ of chain. We never had a problem either with the rode or the chain during the entire trip. We went with chain on “Fodder’s Cat” because she rode a bit high in the bow. The weight of the chain helped keep her nose down.

We opted not to use all chain on the catamaran for two reasons. First, excess weight compromises the performance of a multihull and, secondly, Anna Marie prefers not to hook up a “snubber” to the chain every night.

The modifications we made to the house batteries and engine charging system seem to have been successful. We didn’t need to run the generator this evening and we were able to stay on one battery bank the whole evening.