barret bonden wrote:

Anchored in a open south facing cove ; tidal current runs east/west,
wind was from the SW. Anchored 4 hours before low, boat drifted east on
anchor line , bow toward anchor as it should be .

As slack approached, aft of boat started to swing back towards the anchor
, irrespective of wind and remaining east flowing current; had I not moved
the boat it would have wrapped the line around my rudder.

Last week at this spot I woke up to find line between my keel and rudder; I
thought it had happened with no tension on the line at slack , but in this
case the boat was still hard on the line back west to the anchor. I am
completely at a loss to explain this . some odd eddy in this cove ? Boat is
fin keel Pearson. Setting a partial main helped some, but I had to run the
engine in forward to bring the bow towards the anchor ...



I see 3 problems here, the boat's tendency to 'sail' around
ont he end of the anchor rode, the current's tendency to
push the boat around contrary to the wind, and running the
engine when you've already got a line fouled underwater.

There are a couple of solutions; using two anchors in a
Bahamian or even just anchoring by the stern as well as the
bow... I have sometimes used a small mushroom anchor on very
short scope in addition to the overnight hook, this keeps
the boat from 'sailing' around on the rode quite nicely. The
answer to getting the rode fouled around the keel is to use
all chain or a kellet on the rode to hold it down. I've
heard it advocated to use a floating anchor line but this
makes it worse IMHO.

On the last point, I've had pretty bad luck with ropes &
props, and so am very gun-shy about it. I'm sure it occurred
to you and there were steps taken to prevent adding a fouled
prop to the list of problems.

Remember, these kinds of experiences are how you get to be
an old salt (assuming you survive them).

Fresh Breezes- Doug King