Anchoring, the simple act of deploying a heavy mass to anchor your yacht, is still a fundamental skill, but often misunderstoodA lot of yacht to enjoy at anchor \u2013 note the large hull windows. Photo: Jean-Marie LiotAs the sun slipped below the horizon, so did the noise of the day. The thermal wind softened, the engine fan stopped whirring, and the last of the tourist boats swung into port. In that quiet moment of reflection that one takes at dusk, I was living every sailor\u2019s dream.
\nWe were anchored off the coast of the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve. This remote north-western tip of Iceland is only accessible by boat. Four or five waterfalls cascaded fresh glacial melt down the horseshoe of mountains and into the fjord that was our home for the night. In this isolated northern outcrop of the globe just the hardiest of sea creatures, birds and puffins went about their business on the rocky shores. Otherwise we were entirely alone.
\nWe are living in the age of hydrofoils, carbon fibre and satellites. Our world is getting faster paced and more determined than ever to leap into the future with greater efficiency. And yet, the core components of the universal sailing experience remain the same: simplicity, stunning scenery, self-sufficiency, serenity and solitude.
\nAre we putting too much emphasis on cutting-edge technologies and forgetting the fundamentals of a good day on the water? Are we at risk of losing touch with our roots?
\nAnchoring is \u2013 literally \u2013 one of sailings\u2019 grounding cornerstones, an ancient art that dates back millennia. Devised not long after the boat itself, anchoring began with a large rock and a rope. By Roman times the original \u2018anchor rocks\u2019 were shaped to include prongs making them more transportable and better at temporarily digging into the seabed.
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Modern anchors now have hinge points and different designs to suit boat sizes and seabeds, but they\u2019re still basically a heavy thing attached to a warp. For sailors, anchoring marks a shift from moving to being.
\nAs one of sailing\u2019s most unchanged fundamentals, are we giving anchoring enough credit? It\u2019s easy to become so focussed on optimisation, that we\u2019re perhaps brushing over those core skills. From an educational standpoint, anchoring, like many other basic sailing principles (hoisting and dropping sails, tying knots or driving by the feel of the wind on our faces), is often undertaught and misunderstood.
\nRecently I hosted a webinar to explain how to deploy or weigh an anchor without a windlass. Many of the participants \u2013 regular cruisers and boat owners \u2013 hadn\u2019t ever been formally taught how to do it. And if they had been taught, they didn\u2019t really understand the whys and hows.
\nI explained: sit still counteracting effects of the wind or tidal stream, drop the hook plus two- to four-times the depth of the water in chain or warp or both, fall back against it, see if it holds, and pay about the same amount of warp again. If the electricity fails, pull or ease it by hand and use a mechanical aid like a winch or a purchase system to help you control it.
\nThe wide eyes looking back at me were indicative of the disbelief. Is it really that simple? It\u2019s as if, with everything in sailing becoming so complicated, it can be hard to grapple with something so basic as a pulley system or the effects of a metal hook, chain, gravity and the seabed.
\nThis begs the question, why hasn\u2019t anchoring evolved? Is there a better solution? Just as furling can be more effective than hoisting and dropping, is an anchor just too inefficient?
\nNo. Anchoring is still used, because anchoring works. There\u2019s no computer program that can beat the feel of the boat yanking back on a good set. There is no phone application that can feel as trustworthy as thousands of years worth of evidence proving that something works.
\nMaybe it could \u2013 like other \u2018old-school\u2019 practices \u2013 be filtered out for a \u2018better way\u2019. It\u2019s not that crazy to imagine a future in which we keep the engines on to hold station in one spot overnight because it\u2019s \u2018safer\u2019 and easier to fit more boats into a bay if we don\u2019t have to deal with the unknowns of swinging, holding and wind shifts. The memory of a silent night alone will be a tale from \u2018the good old days\u2019.
\nSo while I\u2019m all for making sailing more accessible, I think we should tread with caution when it comes to optimisations. We often chase new ideas thinking that improvements and complexity are better, but sometimes simplicity is mastery. Anchoring is a quiet reminder that some things are better left unchanged.<\/p>\n
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Anchoring, the simple act of deploying a heavy mass to anchor your yacht, is still a fundamental skill, but often misunderstoodA lot of yacht to enjoy at anchor \u2013 note the large hull windows. Photo: Jean-Marie LiotAs the sun slipped … <\/p>\n