Anchoring

People often ask me: “where did you learn to sail”? They should ask: “where are learnING to sail? Sailing is a lifelong learning activity for me. I learned A LOT at Hoofers Sailing. But I’ve also read (or am readING) multiple sailing books. One of such books is Stress-free Sailing by Duncan Wells. I follow Duncan’s advice on anchoring.

Before Calpurnias Love was first launched on Lake Mendota, I’d bought ribbon on Amazon to “code the cable”. I remember my wife asking: “what is this for?” It wasn’t until our second season that we even anchored.

So what is “coding the cable?” It’s marking the anchor chain and rope in 5 meter increments so you know how much chain to let out. Why does that matter? So you can ensure (to the best of your abilities), based on the wind and the depth of the water, that your anchored boat doesn’t start moving around.

When the winds are strong, the formula is: (depth+beam)*6 (in meters) or (3m+1m)*6 = 24 meters of anchor chain you’d want to let out. In less wind, you can use (depth+beam)*4 or (3m+1m)*4 = 16 meters of anchor chain. Here is a video of us anchoring on a very windy and wavy day.