We went cruising this weekend, north on Pine Island Sound in SWFL, to
a nice little cove called Pelican Bay on the north end of Cayo Costa
Island, just south of Boca Grande. It is a well protected harbor and
we had it almost to ourselves because of the chilly weather. The
dolphins were out in full force and we had a full escort most of the
trip north.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxHhfr3buOw

http://tinyurl.com/2egxdr

On our way in to Pelican Bay we noticed a very unusual trawler that
had clearly been modeled after a George Buehler "Diesel Duck" design.
It had paravane stabilizers, lots of freeboard, mast and hoist
forward, and a raised pilot house. All in all it was a very salty
looking boat and about 40 feet long.

http://www.dieselducks.com/

After anchoring we motored over in the dinghy to get a better
look, ended up meeting the owner, and were invited aboard for a tour
of the boat. He had hand built it over 4 years and something like
$100K in cost, doing virtually all of the work himself. It
was beautifully done to professional quality in almost every respect,
and he and his family were out for their first cruise since launching.

To make a long story short, we got hit with a 35 to 40 kt squall about
2:00AM on Sunday morning, and awoke at dawn to see his boat heeled
over on a sand bar about 1/2 a mile away from us. Sure enough his
anchor had broken loose during the squall, and they had dragged
aground at nearly high tide, on their very first night out. We are
not entirely sure of all the subsequent details but believe he was
required to sign a salvage contract with SeaTow to get pulled off.
I'm sure it was an expensive lesson in how not to anchor, and it would
not be a good thing to have on your insurance record.

We of course had done our usual due diligence anchoring on 5:1 scope
with 3/8ths chain, and a heavy anchor well dug in under power. As far
as I could tell from the GPS plot, we never dragged an inch even
though the anchor load probably exceeded 2,000 lbs during the squall.
Yesterday morning when we pulled up, the windlass would not even budge
the anchor off the bottom. I ended up locking off the chain and
pulled it out with the engines. The anchor was so well set it must
have had at least 200 pounds of mud and clay on it.

Moral of the story? You really can't be too careful when anchoring
for the night. The force of the wind at 40 kts is 16 times greater
than at 10 kts, and 40 kts is just a routine squall in my experience.

PS: Thank you Glenn Ashmore.

That 120 lb Spade is some awesome anchor, and it is darned cheap
insurance, especially these days when your first claim is likely to be
your last.