When Your Auxiliary Fails... One Option is to Drop Anchor! By Steve Morrell
I
n the ’90s, I was living in Colorado and had a Catalina 22 that my wife and I kept on a mooring in a huge reservoir that straddled the Colorado-New Mexico state line. There was a mooring field on the south end of the reservoir just north of the dam (Navajo Lake). We put the boat in the water around Memorial Day and pulled it out around Labor Day. It was mountain desert and too cold to be sailing in the winter. But in the summer, it was beautiful sailing— if you had enough wind. There was always a steady south wind in the early morning blowing up the reservoir’s main leg that meandered north for 20 to 30 miles, with side canyons shooting off east and west. The reservoir was mostly lined with steep cliffs on each side, the side canyons narrowing down to eventually nothing. The morning wind was always the best, and the sail quiet and peaceful. We regularly spent a Saturday night—often with other sailors on their boats—moored to a tree or rock on one of these side canyons, often having a sandy beach to build a fire on and sit around for the evening. You would often point your bow into a rocky shore—close enough to step off the boat onto land—and drop an anchor off the stern. But the bottom dropped off so fast—after all, it was a canyon filled with water—that the stern of our 22footer might be in over 40 to 50 feet of water, so we had a good 150 feet of anchor line, as you never really knew the depth. Since all my sailing before this was in the ocean, and mainly in Florida, this seemed a bit strange. Otherwise, it was really idyllic in so many ways. The only other time we got wind was in afternoon summer thunderstorms. Winds were then from light to strong gusts, shifty, and often intermixed with rain and lightning. Sometimes it was a good wind to sail in, although it was always shifty amid the
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SOUTHWINDS
canyon walls. Sometimes we would anchor off a beach and weren’t sure where the safest spot was from the lightning—on the boat with a tall mast, or onshore. If onshore, we sometimes went back to the boat when it started to rain, although my general feeling was that the more dangerous spot was on the cliff tops nearby, which had scattered tall trees, and a mast way down below those cliffs wasn’t as bad as you might think. One time, when heading back in on
a Sunday afternoon, we were being followed by one of these thunderstorms. The marina, which managed the moorings (that cost only $60-plus dollars a month!), would take you out to your boat from shore in a skiff when you arrived and bring you back to shore when you departed. Since we loaded the boat up from the docks with coolers, sleeping bags and supplies, at the end of our trip, I would drop my wife off at the dock with all the goods and then take the boat out to the mooring field, while she loaded the car up. Since we had a 9hp outboard, we motored into the dock and out to the mooring. On this particular day, the storm was brewing, and you could feel the gusts coming as the sky clouded up
overhead. As I motored from the docks and got a couple hundred yards away, the motor started losing power. It kept running, but it wasn’t pushing the boat along. Meanwhile, the storm’s winds were increasing, getting quite strong, and the chop was picking up. I was afraid to turn the motor off and check it, as I wasn’t sure it would start back up so I kept trying to head towards the mooring. I wasn’t making much progress, and little by little, the wind was pushing me more than the motor was—towards a very rocky shore. My first thought, being about 100 yards from shore, was to drop anchor, which I immediately did. I had the anchor line always ready to drop from the stern where it was handy with the end already secured (I was big on anchor preparation). I threw it over with the 150-foot line attached and it went straight down—but it wasn’t long enough at only 50 to 60 yards offshore! I was still thinking my ocean experience. I was rapidly being blown to shore with an anchor line that was going straight down like a fishing line with a weight on the end. The boat just kept going and I was getting closer, so my next thought was to cut the anchor line and raise sails. Then along came help. A powerboater saw me struggling and came up to me and towed me to the mooring (a good half mile at this point), and then gave me my ride back to shore. Whew! (I saved the anchor and line, at the least.) We eventually figured out the motor problem. I can’t remember what it was, but I do remember being only 50 to 60 yards offshore and 150 feet of anchor line not being enough. In Florida, you might have to go out many miles for that not to be enough line. Even in Southern California, where I’ve sailed a bit, that would be more than enough line that far offshore. But not in a mountain reservoir. www.southwindsmagazine.com