It was very sad to see on the television a few days ago that during extremely strong winds during the night two yachts anchored in the river Arade opposite Marina de Portimão had dragged their anchors and ended up on the beach. One a steel vessel, built like the proverbial small building at the bottom of the garden, was I am sure not damaged, it is now in the marina having been towed off the beach.  The other a yacht of GRP construction is the one shown in the photograph above and is I am sure a complete write off, she is both against and on top of rocks and must be very badly damaged.

I feel very sorry for the owners of the yacht, whilst there are certain precautions that one should take that should prevent this from happening, I consider myself fortunate that it has never happened to me.

The worst night that I have ever had at anchor was about 13 years ago in a very small Moroccan harbour called M’diq, when the wind got up to force 9,  my boat, a Rival 38, was lying to her bower anchor and all her chain, I could not leave the harbour because there were enormous breaking waves across the entrance and I could not re-lay my anchor further upwind as it was already too close to moored fishing boats on the other side of the harbour., I managed to also lay my kedge anchor with about 40 meters of chain and lots of rope out in the direction that I thought the wind would veer to during the night which I hoped would prevent the boat from swinging round and hitting the harbour wall. 

I was much closer to the shore astern than I felt was safe, but pulling in chain to move the boat forward would mean that I would then have less chain on the bottom and my anchor would be more likely to drag, I agonized for a bit and decided that I must find a really large anchor, using my dinghy I rowed over to a fishing boat and managed to ‘borrow’ an enormous and very heavy fisherman’s anchor. For a small fee the fisherman using his boat took the anchor and one end of my longest warp which was 100 meters long plus some chain and laid the anchor slightly beyond and between my two anchors, I rowed back to my boat and attached the rope to one of my fore deck cleats. I now felt that we stood a good chance of surviving the night without ending up on the beach.

I was lucky that night; there were five of us and we took turns to sit in the cockpit on anchor watch and our anchors did not drag at all.  I should never have anchored in M’diq for that night because my last weather forecast was from the day before on my navtex and whilst it had not mentioned either an easterly wind or the fact that there was going to be a gale, I did realise that it was not completely up to date.

It is much better though not to ever get into the sort of situation that I have described above. But if you have to anchor when there is going to be a strong wind then firstly never anchor on a ‘lee shore’, secondly when anchoring in a harbour, having ascertained where the wind is going to be coming from, anchor on the weather side of the harbour where the waves will be much smaller and you will have the maximum amount of water behind you. Thirdly, put out as much chain as possible. I often hear people say that four times the depth of water is enough; yes it is enough in calm weather, but in strong winds put out all your chain.

Finally, if you do find yourself at anchor in gale force winds on a lee shore then either move the boat to a more sheltered position or put it on a berth in a marina and if you have to stay at anchor in that position, as I did at M’diq, put out all your bower anchor chain,  lay your kedge anchor with chain and a very long rope, if you haven't got a   third anchor borrow one from another boat and finally organise the crew into anchor watches and if you are on your own you are just going to have to accept that you will have to stay up all night. Having done all of that and she stills drags her anchors your last option is to start the engine and motor very slowly into the wind to hold your position.

Lets hope though that it never happens to you – that night that I had in M'diq is engraved on my memory – whilst I was quite well prepared, I was also lucky. I should not have been there, there is a good marina less than an hours sail away, that's where I should have been and would have been if I had taken the trouble to get a completely up to date weather forecast.