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051 - Med Style Anchoring – It’s so European

It’s complicated but it really lets you pack them in.  Having done it now 3 times now, I hope I’m done with it.  For us it’s complicated by the tender hanging off the stern and our stern anchor rode being 300 ft long in the bottom of a lazarette under a pile of other items.  All the rode has to come out into the cockpit for attaching to a tree on the shore.   It makes for a messy operation.  Let’s see if I can explain.

To anchor med style, you have to be able to backup well, which being a sailboat puts us at a distinct disadvantage (can you hear me saying powerboat would be better here too, but I won’t say it).  You also ignore the winds as you will back into a parking spot between other boats anchoring the same way.  You “simply” pick a spot, throw out the bow anchor in front of it, back into the slot and tie a rope to something substantial on the shore, and put out bumpers for your neighbors.  That’s all you have to do.  So we picked our spot, noting a big rock just under the water off the shore, started backing into the intended location and then realized we needed to get the stern line quickly because that wind we wanted to ignore started pushing us into the green boat – he deploys all hands to fend us off.  I shorten the bow anchor rode to pull us away and try again.  This time the other neighbor, with self-interest to protect his own boat, hops in his dingy to pull our stern rope ashore.  300ft of line is now all over the cockpit being handed out over the railing which is wrong, it needed to be under the railing so it could be made fast on a cleat.  I freak as the boat gets pulled near the rock putting our spade rudder at risk.  Balancing the amount of bow line with the stern is a tensioning back and forth.  Then I realize we don’t have the proper scope for the bowline, so we leave the stern line attached and reset the bow anchor further out.  Now we’re cooking, just get it all taunt so you stay in line between the two boats and not hitting the rock.  There is little margin when you pack them in like this.
That night a thunderstorm blew thru and the winds were abeam.  We’re only held by the ends so the tension is immense.  Luckily it’s short lived.  All is well but it is about as complicated as it comes.   The next most complicated anchoring is in a current with an opposing wind, it’s like a simpler version of Med, still all the mess, just none of the neighboring boats to contend with.  Either way, I really don’t like being sideways the wind, the boat should always weather into the wind.

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