Time’s hanging pretty heavy here in Hampton. I’m waiting around for word that we’ve made the short list for the research vessel project so I can easily attend the interview half an hour away. That could come anytime this month. The weather has been too cold and blustery to make it seem worth running down to Portsmouth or doing any other local exploring. This cold spell just keeps going and going and going. I ran down to the marina for fuel this morning and a few hundred yards out of the harbor entrance to get in some more battery charging time and was glad I didn’t need to go any further.
I’d thought of putting the boat in a slip and taking a two or three day car trip down to the Outer Banks but the Hampton Public Piers are completely filled with the annual marine law enforcement conference and practice session so I’m forced to anchor out. It’s a good week to be in Hampton thought, it’s “Restaurant Week” and there are pretty much half price deals at every establishment so I go ashore for lunch every day. Aside from not having a convenient place to tie up my dinghy, they even have boats in the dinghy slip, it’s comforting to know that just about every police and rescue boat in the Hampton Roads area is only a hundred yards away. If I’m ever going to spring a major leak at anchor, have a fire, or drag ashore, this will be the time to do it.
I’m going over to Buck’s in the morning for the first appointment to replace my two worn out molar crowns. Since I’ll have a rental car, I’ll restock food and run some other errands. That presents a problem because the wind is predicted to shift to northeast and the east during the day. The anchorage here is narrow. Normally, I wouldn’t worry at this time of year with almost no traffic but I know from being here at the same time last year that the guys and gals in uniform will want to use the channel for MOB and towing practice. Since the local harbormaster is almost certainly present, I don’t want to return and find Strider in the middle of the channel or worse if the anchor doesn’t reset.
I could have just run out a second anchor but it’s predicted to blow pretty hard. It may also be snowing while it’s blowing so I certainly don’t want to be fiddling with anchors in those conditions, even with rescue so close at hand if I fall in or capsize the dinghy rowing out another hook. I carry 120 feet of chain in the bilge for both ballast and setting up hurricane hole moorings. I’ve wanted to clean and take a look under it so, both for practice and boredom alleviation, setting it out seemed like a good way to use up part of the afternoon.
I assembled the large Guardian anchor, rated for a 47 foot boat, that I keep in the bilge. I then fed the first sixty foot length of chain into a canvas tote bag and humped it up on deck to attach to the anchor. I let myself back on my main anchor until I was in the shallowest water I felt I would dare bring the boat in for retrieval of the anchor. I let the anchor go over the stern and worked the boat back out into the channel by motoring ahead slightly, running up to pull in the nylon rode slack, and repeating. Who needs a windlass? I need all that running exercise anyway.
Once anchored bow and stern, I tote loaded and humped the second chain up to the foredeck to attach to the Fortress second anchor that normally lives lashed to the bow pulpit. I got that all ready to let go and then slacked off the main anchor and ran around the radius of its rode across the channel to what I judged was the right spot and dropped the Fortress. Oh yes, I had first attached a long floating line (purchased right here on SBO as my old dinghy towing painter) to the temporary stern anchor chain.
Once the Fortress was set, I brought the two chains together at the stern. This is actually the tricky part, not wanting a sudden wind gust or slip of the fingers to send a few hundred dollars of chain and anchor to the murky bottom. I tied line through the chains a few links down so I would have a bit of free chain to work with and carefully moved the line from attachment to attachment. I kept a float tied on the stern anchor line so I could cast it off completely if things got out of hand. It was gusty enough to justify some care and I was practicing how I might do this in much more challenging conditions.
I got a shackle in the end of each chain and then put a large shackle through each of these which also took a large diameter line with eye and thimble that I use as a mooring pendent on moorings that are not equipped with one. A temporary line to this gave me enough slack to motor and pull up to my main anchor and retrieve it. It will be my spare for the next few days if things get out of hand. I then pulled the rope pendant up to the bow chocks, made it fast, and settled back to admire my work.
Da…, I mean, hmmm. I seemed quite a bit farther back then I thought I would be. I dropped a sounding line over the transom and checked the tide. I was going to have my rudder dragging in the mud at low tide even without significant strain on the anchor gear. It’s pretty hard to judge these distances. That’s why the practice.
The tide had dropped so I didn’t want to try going in far enough to retrieve the Guardian and move it out. So, I put a line on it again for slack and worked my way out to pull in the Fortress and pile its chain and the anchor on the foredeck along with about a bushel of mud due to the haste necessary to keep the boat from blowing back aground. I ran farther out under power and dropped it again.
Too far. I couldn’t bring the chain ends together. No problem, that’s why Strider’s lockers look like one of those marine consignment store corners. I shackled another length of chain on to the Guardian one and tried again. Too short. No problem, I just happen to have a slightly longer length of chain in the same bucket. I shackled that on.
With a lot of sweating and hauling, I could just bring the two chain ends together amidships and attach them to the big pendant shackle. If I had dropped the Fortress six inches farther towards Hampton, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. See, that’s why I practice. Once connected, it was a simple matter to drop the chains and move the pendant into the bow chock and cleat as the boat drifted back in the wind.
I now have sixty feet of chain running to the west and ninety feet to the east with just barely enough slack to pull them to the surface to disconnect and retrieve with their anchors one at a time. The mooring pendant size rope runs from the joining shackle to the bow with about 2:1 scope. It’s basically a temporary mooring but one that I can retrieve myself. In fact, if I do have to go in for water before I take it all apart again, I’ll probably just put a line and float on it and leave it in place until I return. Strider will swing in about the same space as on a mooring on heavy gear without the usual concerns about twisting up a Bahamian moor. It was a lot of work but much more interesting than another couple hours reading the current detective novel. I learned some things that will make it easier the next time when I may be doing it under time pressure or in rough conditions.
Oh yes, now I have to clean that bilge under where the chain was stored.
I’d thought of putting the boat in a slip and taking a two or three day car trip down to the Outer Banks but the Hampton Public Piers are completely filled with the annual marine law enforcement conference and practice session so I’m forced to anchor out. It’s a good week to be in Hampton thought, it’s “Restaurant Week” and there are pretty much half price deals at every establishment so I go ashore for lunch every day. Aside from not having a convenient place to tie up my dinghy, they even have boats in the dinghy slip, it’s comforting to know that just about every police and rescue boat in the Hampton Roads area is only a hundred yards away. If I’m ever going to spring a major leak at anchor, have a fire, or drag ashore, this will be the time to do it.
I’m going over to Buck’s in the morning for the first appointment to replace my two worn out molar crowns. Since I’ll have a rental car, I’ll restock food and run some other errands. That presents a problem because the wind is predicted to shift to northeast and the east during the day. The anchorage here is narrow. Normally, I wouldn’t worry at this time of year with almost no traffic but I know from being here at the same time last year that the guys and gals in uniform will want to use the channel for MOB and towing practice. Since the local harbormaster is almost certainly present, I don’t want to return and find Strider in the middle of the channel or worse if the anchor doesn’t reset.
I could have just run out a second anchor but it’s predicted to blow pretty hard. It may also be snowing while it’s blowing so I certainly don’t want to be fiddling with anchors in those conditions, even with rescue so close at hand if I fall in or capsize the dinghy rowing out another hook. I carry 120 feet of chain in the bilge for both ballast and setting up hurricane hole moorings. I’ve wanted to clean and take a look under it so, both for practice and boredom alleviation, setting it out seemed like a good way to use up part of the afternoon.
I assembled the large Guardian anchor, rated for a 47 foot boat, that I keep in the bilge. I then fed the first sixty foot length of chain into a canvas tote bag and humped it up on deck to attach to the anchor. I let myself back on my main anchor until I was in the shallowest water I felt I would dare bring the boat in for retrieval of the anchor. I let the anchor go over the stern and worked the boat back out into the channel by motoring ahead slightly, running up to pull in the nylon rode slack, and repeating. Who needs a windlass? I need all that running exercise anyway.
Once anchored bow and stern, I tote loaded and humped the second chain up to the foredeck to attach to the Fortress second anchor that normally lives lashed to the bow pulpit. I got that all ready to let go and then slacked off the main anchor and ran around the radius of its rode across the channel to what I judged was the right spot and dropped the Fortress. Oh yes, I had first attached a long floating line (purchased right here on SBO as my old dinghy towing painter) to the temporary stern anchor chain.
Once the Fortress was set, I brought the two chains together at the stern. This is actually the tricky part, not wanting a sudden wind gust or slip of the fingers to send a few hundred dollars of chain and anchor to the murky bottom. I tied line through the chains a few links down so I would have a bit of free chain to work with and carefully moved the line from attachment to attachment. I kept a float tied on the stern anchor line so I could cast it off completely if things got out of hand. It was gusty enough to justify some care and I was practicing how I might do this in much more challenging conditions.
I got a shackle in the end of each chain and then put a large shackle through each of these which also took a large diameter line with eye and thimble that I use as a mooring pendent on moorings that are not equipped with one. A temporary line to this gave me enough slack to motor and pull up to my main anchor and retrieve it. It will be my spare for the next few days if things get out of hand. I then pulled the rope pendant up to the bow chocks, made it fast, and settled back to admire my work.
Da…, I mean, hmmm. I seemed quite a bit farther back then I thought I would be. I dropped a sounding line over the transom and checked the tide. I was going to have my rudder dragging in the mud at low tide even without significant strain on the anchor gear. It’s pretty hard to judge these distances. That’s why the practice.
The tide had dropped so I didn’t want to try going in far enough to retrieve the Guardian and move it out. So, I put a line on it again for slack and worked my way out to pull in the Fortress and pile its chain and the anchor on the foredeck along with about a bushel of mud due to the haste necessary to keep the boat from blowing back aground. I ran farther out under power and dropped it again.
Too far. I couldn’t bring the chain ends together. No problem, that’s why Strider’s lockers look like one of those marine consignment store corners. I shackled another length of chain on to the Guardian one and tried again. Too short. No problem, I just happen to have a slightly longer length of chain in the same bucket. I shackled that on.
With a lot of sweating and hauling, I could just bring the two chain ends together amidships and attach them to the big pendant shackle. If I had dropped the Fortress six inches farther towards Hampton, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. See, that’s why I practice. Once connected, it was a simple matter to drop the chains and move the pendant into the bow chock and cleat as the boat drifted back in the wind.
I now have sixty feet of chain running to the west and ninety feet to the east with just barely enough slack to pull them to the surface to disconnect and retrieve with their anchors one at a time. The mooring pendant size rope runs from the joining shackle to the bow with about 2:1 scope. It’s basically a temporary mooring but one that I can retrieve myself. In fact, if I do have to go in for water before I take it all apart again, I’ll probably just put a line and float on it and leave it in place until I return. Strider will swing in about the same space as on a mooring on heavy gear without the usual concerns about twisting up a Bahamian moor. It was a lot of work but much more interesting than another couple hours reading the current detective novel. I learned some things that will make it easier the next time when I may be doing it under time pressure or in rough conditions.
Oh yes, now I have to clean that bilge under where the chain was stored.
