Dragging anchor at 03:00, Symi
A Bavaria 42 slipped toward a moored caïque in Pedi Bay before the anchor alarm woke the skipper.
What happened.
A Bavaria 42 dragged anchor at 03:00 during a meltemi wind shift, slipping toward a moored Greek caïque before the anchor alarm woke the skipper.
Anchored in Pedi Bay for the night, the crew set a single bower anchor in weed-over-sand with what felt like good scope. A 0300 wind shift swung the boat beam-on to a fresh 30-knot gust; the anchor broke out and the yacht began making sternway toward a moored wooden caïque. A GPS anchor alarm — set that evening almost as an afterthought — sounded in time for the skipper to start the engine, motor up on the rode, and re-set clear of the other boat. No contact, no damage.
We'd had a long beat up from Tilos and Pedi looked like a gift — a deep, near-landlocked pocket of the Dodecanese with a taverna ashore and half a dozen boats already swinging quietly. I put the anchor down in about seven metres over what the chart called sand, paid out forty metres of chain, backed down hard on it, and watched the transit on the hillside for a quarter of an hour. It held. We ate, we slept.
What I hadn't reckoned with was the weed. Pedi's bottom is sand with a skin of weed over it, and the meltemi that had been forecast for the next afternoon arrived nine hours early and from a different quarter. At three in the morning the boat was lying beam-on to a gust I'd put at thirty-five knots, and the anchor that had held against a steady pull let go the moment the load came on sideways.
I want to be honest that I did not wake up because I am a vigilant sailor. I woke up because of a fifteen-euro app. I'd dropped a GPS anchor-watch circle before turning in, more out of habit than worry, and its alarm — a horrible electronic shriek — went off as we drifted out of the ring. By the time I was in the cockpit we had made perhaps two boat-lengths of sternway toward a moored caïque whose owner was very much asleep aboard.
The engine started first try. I motored slowly up over our own chain to take the load off, brought the anchor most of the way up, motored clear into open water, and re-anchored with more scope and a transit I could see against the shore lights. It took twenty minutes and my hands didn't stop shaking for an hour. Nobody else in the bay ever knew.
What it teaches.
- 1Set an anchor alarm every night, even in a sheltered bay. The cost is seconds; the payoff is the only warning you get of a quiet drag.
- 2A holding test that pulls in one direction proves nothing about a wind shift. Weed-over-sand can hold a straight pull and release the instant the load goes sideways.
- 3Rehearse the night re-anchor before you need it: engine on, motor up the rode, recover, move, re-set. Doing it cold at 03:00 beam-on to a gust is not the time to think it through.
Where this comes from.
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One piece of equipment that could have…
Genesis dragged silently at 03:00; nothing but a GPS anchor-watch alarm woke the skipper in time to motor clear of a moored caïque. The watch circle had been set almost as an afterthought. Without those ninety seconds of warning, a quiet drag in a crowded bay becomes a collision or a grounding before anyone reaches the deck.
SeaWise note A fifteen-euro phone app is the cheapest insurance in this Logbook. Set the circle every night — even in a sheltered bay, even for a single night.
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