Anchoring can be intimidating to sailors, especially if one has to anchor in front of an audience, or with an unfamiliar boat, or with an inexperienced crew. Chartering a boat in some gorgeous place can bring all three of these aspects together, for some rather unfortunate results. To prevent the inevitable shame from crushing some egos, all names and other identification has been removed from the following stories.

1. Clutch Play
   On Moorings 4600 catamarans, which have more in common with volleyball courts than sailboats, the anchor windlass can be pressed into service to raise the mainsail, which otherwise takes about 10 minutes with the possibility of having a stroke. To use the windlass as an electric halyard winch, it’s necessary to de-clutch the chain gypsy so that the warping drum can be used. A quick flip of the windlass handle and you can raise the main with nary a coronary.
   On this particular day, we sailed all morning and then ended up in a cute little harbor on the north side of the Island of Solta, near Split, Croatia. My trusty crewmember, who I will call “Matt”, offered to drop the anchor so we could have lunch. He swung open the hatch to give him access to the windlass, pressed the “down” button, and thus began a cacophony of flailing chain as the anchor fell into the clear water, followed up 250’ of chain. “Stay away from the windlass!” I bellowed, as it had appeared the Matt was going to try to tighten the clutch and the chain raced past his hands. About 40 seconds later, with all chain having been dropped, the bitter end of the rode was reached and thankfully the piece of line holding the bitter end to a padeye held.
   Lessons Learned:
   1. If you ease the clutch on the windlass, tighten it up again.
   2. Once the chain starts flying into the water, stay clear of it.
   3. You might just check that the clutch is actually firmed up before you use the windlass, Matt...
2. Castles in the British Virgin Islands
   Not the kind of castles you’d find in Britain, but rather the type that form in narrow, shallow, and inadequate chain lockers. We discovered this while trying to raise the hook in about 25 knots of wind, with the wind coming from multiple directions, seemingly at once, and many expensive cruising boats within reach.
   “What’s taking so long?”
   “The windlass breaker keeps on tripping!” Initially I thought this was an allusion to Michael Pollan’s latest book, when in fact my crewmember, whom I will call “Andrew”, was dealing with a blown breaker. The breaker, incidentally, was cleverly hidden under the sink along with the pots, pans, garbage bags, and some noxious food that was well past its sell-by date.
   “Let me know when there’s no tension on the anchor rode so it won’t trip!” I replied.
   “It’s tripping all the time, with no tension on the rode.”
   This problem sounded familiar. “You’ve got a chain castle in the rode locker!” I suggested, not realizing that this had a 10% chance, at best, of helping to resolve the problem.
   For those of you who are unfamiliar with chain castles, this amusingly-named syndrome occurs when the chain stacks on top of itself until it reaches the “roof” of the chain locker, and backs up so that the chain gypsy can no longer disgorge it’s chain downward. This can cause the gypsy to grind to a halt, and thus was the reason for the tripped windlass breaker.
   I left the helm, jogged forward to the starboard water tank locker, and lifted the hatch cover. Barely visible over the tops of the water tanks a gray castle of chain climbed to the top of the locker. All it took was a swat with my hand to knock the castle sideways, and the problem was solved.
   Lessons learned:
   1. Windlass operation instructions should include telling everyone where the circuit breaker is located.
   2. Explain chain castles in advance of their formation, and indicate how to resolve them.
   3. If possible, don’t leave the helm to solve problems. Had the anchor broken free of the bottom, or if something else had slowed my return to the helm, we could have been in deep yogurt.
3. Two propellers gives you twice as many opportunities...
   Since the two hurricanes hit the BVI in 2017, moorings have been easier to get because the charter “traffic” is way down compared to the previous years. At least we were able to get moorings at Cooper and Norman Islands, which are frequently all taken by the time we arrive. After staying on a mooring during a blustery night, it was time to cast off on Tuesday, and it was “Andrew’s” day to be Captain. To help ease the strain on the mooring bridle, he powered forward with gusto towards the mooring ball to “cut us some slack”. However, he overshot, and we ended up running over the mooring buoy and pennant, resulting in a stalled port engine and an inability to leave, as the mooring pennant was wrapped around our port propeller.
   Luckily, the water was warm and clear, and it only took a few minutes to free the line around the propeller using some sharp jerks. The technique that seems to work is to take the free end of the pennant and to jerk perpendicularly to the prop shaft, since the line tends to jam between prop and strut, or in our case, prop and saildrive. Regardless, in a few minutes we were on our way, egos mostly intact.
   Lessons Learned:
   1. Back away from moorings, allowing the prevailing wind to blow you away.
   2. If you cannot see the mooring and pennant, put the engine(s) in neutral. Don’t
      “power out of it”.
   3. Having a “swimmer of the watch” can resolve small issues in a hurry, but make sure that the engines are off and that you have a spotter for the swimmer.
4. Happy cruising!