This is my new favorite story. You might recall my quasi-healthy fear of anchoring (the fear that while I slumber, gremlins are undersea digging my anchor out from it's perch and letting it run free - sending my family and boat on a bumper car excursion probably toward some sharp rocks.
It was a bright Saturday afternoon, we'd just had lunch with my brother Pete and his fiancé Lauren. We were headed for some beach time and motored in the dinghy from our boat to shore. On the way, I noticed two boats that were just too close together. As we motored by, it became clear what was going on, the smaller power boat had dragged it's anchor and was bumping into other boats.
I looked around and there were lots of people around, watching it happen. Now, this bugs me - lots of onlookers watching some guy's (the guy with the bigger boat) boat get beat up. I told Mel we should do something, but what that was I am not sure.
I didn't have a plan (what liability am I about to undertake?)(there's a good-but-dumb summartian law, right?), but we dropped the kids off at the beach and motored back. I decided to pull a fender off my boat and use it to protect the two boats from one another; phase 1 is born: stop the damage. As we head back, we encounter a woman in a pool row boat complete with plastic oars intended to venture across the shallow end of the pool.
As we motor by, she's failing at rowing - the oars keep dissasembing on her - it's almost comical. I tell mel to motor me up to the big power boat and I jump out with the fender. Mel goes and helps the crazy lady in the raft. Turns out, crazy lady is the owner, not operator of the boat.
The woman is straight out of central casting: probably drunk, blaming her no-good-fishing husband (it's "his boat" after all) and her bathing suit wasn't keep up with it's task of covering everything. Mel brings her to her drifting boat.
I get up on the powerboat and everything is foreign to me. I can't find a cleat to tie off my fender (so I hold it in position). I still have no idea how they even get on this boat - I had to scamper up and over the hull - a good 5 feet or so (I climb like spiderman). I can't find rope or other fenders I can use to get the boat to protect itself - where do you powerboaters keep your important stuff?
OK, so I've ended the damage and am holding onto the drifting boat, preventing the story from repeating, but now what? Mel did a great job motoring to the crazy lady's rescue and got her on her boat. Crazy lady kept her cell phone in her bathing suit top. As she comes on deck, she's searching the top for the phone and believes she's lost it - I decline to offer assistance locating it. The crazy lady asks me, "what should I do?"
Lots of answers quickly percolate in my mind:
- find a more supportive bathing suit
- lay off the hooch
- don't mistake pool toys for nautical accessories
I decide to go with, "lets get your anchor reset where it won't hurt anybody else." Genius.
I haul up her anchor for her and to my surprise - she's only got 10 feet of rope out. Now, I've probably studied anchoring too much, note my fears above. But the short and simple version of everything I've read is this: let out lots of line.
Mel and I often differ on how much we should let out. I (and all the sea books) say 7 to 1 - for every one foot of depth, let our 7 feet. She seems to have picked up this 3 to 1 habit. She is the one letting down the anchor while I maintain control of the boat from the helm so who know's what she does up there.
Everyone surrounding us at anchor is watching (in awe I assume as my imaginary cape flutters in the wind) and a helper boat comes up and helps the dragging boat move so it can drop anchor. I tell her to let out 3x more line and she'll be fine. That's exactly what she did.
In the end, if the roles were reversed, I'd want someone to jump on my boat and keep it safe. I imagine most people in the anchorage would echo this sentiment. So why did so many just watch it happen? I don't get it. Luckily, the boats appeared to have minimal damage.
All I hope for is some good anchoring karma to come my way. It was probably my motive from the get go.
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