How do I safely anchor in strong winds?

Done right, even sitting out a big blow while out on the water can be a memorable experience, even if you do lose a few comforts and a bit of sleep to survive it.

There are certain steps you can take to prepare yourself to sit out high winds, but if there’s one take-home it’s that preparation is always key.

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This goes for everything from ensuring you have the right type of anchor for where you plan on sitting out the storm, to finding the right place to hide.

I've made some of the mistakes, the most memorable being having to stand knee-deep in the water in the pitch black, pushing the transom of my boat off the shore after my anchor dragged and we came a bit close to the beach – the skeg bumping on the bottom had woken me up. My oversight? Not running out enough scope in what I thought was a safe anchorage.

How can you stop that from happening to you? Here are boatsales.com.au’s top tips for sitting out a big blow.

There’s no shame in running and hiding when it comes to ensuring your boat is well protected in a big blow.

One of the best forms of protection is to get in the lee of land. It’s always higher than sea level and generally speaking has more resistance from trees, rocks and buildings, so the wind moves slower across the land than it does across the water.

If you’re pushing up a creek or waterway, be aware of storm surge where the water level can be much higher than normal. Ensure that where you anchor will leave enough water under the boat so that you’re not risking being grounded once the storm dissipates and the tide falls.

What you drop the pick into will have a very significant influence on how much hold you have.

Sand and mud are probably the easiest seabeds to get a hold in, but while retrieving the anchor from sand can be as easy as raising it vertically, in mud the effort required will be significantly more difficult.

Reef offers the best hold, but the risk is you could lose your anchor if it locks into the structure. 

If the hold is inadequate under the boat, grab a shovel and the dinghy and take your anchor ashore. Dig a hole, drop the anchor in, and fill it back up. If you want even more holding power, grab a large branch, plank of wood or even an oar and place it in the hole at a right angle to the anchor, and bury the lot.

Chain is important for ensuring the anchor sets properly. The idea is the weight of the chain is sufficient to lay a big length of it on the seabed so that even when the boat is pulling on it, a large section of the chain lies on the bottom, pulling the anchor deeper.

The more chain, the more certain that the anchor is set correctly and is not being pulled upwards and out each time the bow lifts and pulls on it.

Scope is how much of the anchor rode the skipper lets out when anchoring. A rule of thumb for scope is to let out five to seven times the rode as the depth of water you’re in, meaning in 10 metres of water you’re letting out 50 to 70 metres of rode.

As conditions worsen, you will need to give out more scope to the point that if conditions are expected to be really bad, run all of what you brung. 

If you’re using a mix of braided rope and chain, watch for chafe on the anchor rode if you’ve scoped out far enough to start putting the braid into the water. Depending on how much vertical movement is in the bow, and side-to-side motion, you may need to wrap extra protection around the line where it rubs on the bow roller.

Well-prepared skippers will always carry a second anchor just in case one is lost. 

Setting a second anchor pretty much doubles the hold of your boat. The other will pick up the load and hold if one anchor moves.

You can also use two anchors in either a vee formation – handy if you want to trim the boat’s heading if the waves are coming in a different direction to the wind – or in series, one behind the other.

If you’re using anchors in series, be aware that if the primary anchor does drag, the secondary anchor will also drag inside the furrow left by the primary.

An advance on the vee anchor set is to place the anchors at right angles to the bow of the boat. This is the best set-up if you expect the wind to change direction significantly, or you’re facing strong tidal flows.

This also is a handy trick for boats anchored in tight spaces, as the amount of swing is minimised.

Different types of anchors do different types of jobs depending on what’s underneath the boat. 

The easiest change if you ever think you’ll need more holding power is to upgrade your anchor to a larger size. The more kilograms the anchor, the larger it is and the better hold it will have.

You’ll also need to have a think about matching the anchor with the bottom. Specialist anchors exist for sand, weed and reef, and each will have its pros and cons when it comes to holding power.

If you need to keep a spare all-rounder, admiralty anchors – the same as you see in tattoos – have been in use for centuries, and have done so for a reason. Modern ones even have folding stocks so you can conveniently store them flat. 

If you have to store a second anchor, ensure you have spare rode as well. If you need to ever cut your anchor free, chances are you won’t get the scoped-out part back.

Technology has gifted boaters with one of the most versatile helpers when anchoring – the anchor alarm.

This function, usually built into a chartplotter but also available on smartphones, builds a virtual fence around the boat. If the anchor drags and the boat moves outside the so-called geofence, an alarm sounds and it’s all hands to deck.

If you’re setting a physical watch – a good practice that technology can’t replace – and there’s enough light and landmarks, you can physically check that the boat is holding fast by triangulating against trees, shorebound or navigation mark lights, hills and even roads. 

Not every accessory on a boat is made to withstand a big blow. There’s nothing worse than something coming loose at the height of the storm and either becoming dangerous or disappearing altogether.

Try and tie down everything that moves. If you have sails furled, add sail ties as a backup to stop them from working loose and flogging themselves to death.

Lash the tender to the boat securely. It’s surprising how many tenders end up on a beach somewhere because it has swung in the breeze and the davits have let go. If you tow a tender, add a second line as backup against rope’s old enemy, chafing.