When anchoring, especially in situations where you are expecting a wind to blow up, its really good to get to know your neighbours.
Sometimes, all you need to know is available by watching them anchor, other times swimming around chatting and being friendly you’ll get to know who they are.
It’s the ones in front of you, relative to the expected wind, are the ones you are most interested in.
If we have a big blow coming, we’ll often swim out to check our anchor, use this as an excuse (and its fun) to chat to the neighbours in front.
Drop the incoming weather into the conversation;
- if they know already, when it’s coming, where from and have adjusted their anchor set accordingly, you can probably sleep well.
- If they are surprised, are asking you questions about how you know etc. then you might be in a position to help them not have an unpleasant surprise and their surprise may well be yours early in the morning.
Many of you may think this is unfair, but we have had neighbours do all of the following; which to me would indicate they need help and we might be able to save them drama that evening.
- Drop 5m of chain in 5m of water
- Drop an anchor without testing or setting it when a blow is coming (Frequently see anchors laying on their side when swimming an anchorage)
- No bridle and short scope is a recipe for dragging we see very frequently
- less than 3:1 scope
- Anchored 20m in front with 40m of chain out (have seen this often in front of rocks and not anticipating the wind shift that will swing them around).
- Multiple attempts to anchor, in front of you, in what should be good holding.
- Dropping their anchor over the top of yours