{"id":3128,"date":"2025-02-04T13:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T13:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/?p=3128"},"modified":"2025-02-06T22:29:25","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T22:29:25","slug":"dragging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/dragging\/","title":{"rendered":"Dragging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.acast.com\/6766f4022dc5d9b993aeca62\/67a247939a67c6bc4eca5fe5\" width=\"100%\" height=\"80px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3129\" src=\"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_4516-300x225.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_4516-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_4516-scaled-600x450.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_4516-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_4516-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_4516-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_4516-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is The Graveyard in Linton Bay, one of the most popular anchorages on the Atlantic coast of Panama. You can see four wrecks (not counting the one in the middle sitting upright on its bilge keels with just the mast sticking out vertically like a lamp post).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All of them dragged their anchors in a stiff northeasterly at one time or another and bounced across the rocks and coral to end up in front of the Casa X restaurant. Nobody bothered to do anything about them and now they provide the clientele with a salutary view over their $10 <em>Platos Completos<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Samsara<\/em> might have joined them yesterday.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fortunately, it appears that although I can be very forgetful about taking shoes when I go ashore or running the watermaker with the inlet closed or (as has just happened) boiling the kettle dry and only realising because of the funny burning smell) I do seem to be more reliable about the important routines.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For instance, it may seem pedantic and annoying for my neighbours but every time I set the anchor, I have a habit of backing up until the chain is taut and then gradually increasing the revs until the little Nanni 21hp is screaming in reverse with water boiling all around the cockpit.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When this happens, the boat is supposed to stay where she is, transits of buoys and trees and boats and houses all steady on their bearings. Only then do I let it idle for a bit to recover and then shut down (to everyone\u2019s relief).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s a trick I learned from Shane Acton when he returned to the UK after setting the record for the smallest boat to sail round the world. He had an outboard but couldn\u2019t really afford the petrol to run it, so the only time it got used was to set the anchor.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOnly thing it\u2019s good for,\u201d said Shane.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d put it quite like that, but using the engine to dig the anchor into the bottom has got to be just as important as getting out of a marina in an onshore Force 6.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or, in this case, I arrived nicely on schedule from Porvenir in the San Blas and found a vacant spot equidistant from the Casa X and the Marina\u2019s Black Pearl Restaurant. I let go in 13 metres, allowed the boat to drift back while I organised the snubber, put the chain on the cleat to spare the windlass, stowed the autopilot, switched off the electronics\u2026 and finally clicked the gear lever into reverse.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We backed down gently until we were level with <em>Lulu<\/em> the Swedish cutter I last saw in Curacao &#8211; although I hadn\u2019t thought I\u2019d end up so close to the American Westsail behind me. This was the first clue that something wasn\u2019t right. We weren\u2019t stopping.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Putting the engine back into neutral, I nipped up to the foredeck and planted my foot firmly on the \u201cUp\u201d switch (which is actually the \u201cDown\u201d switch but I wired them up back to front and couldn\u2019t see the point of changing them all over again just for the sake of correctness.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the usual grinding and screeching from Mr Lofran\u2019s machinery, 45 metres of chain crawled back aboard &#8211; and at the end of it, the anchor emerged backwards. That is to say: upside down &#8211; with the chain wrapped tightly around the crown and then back over itself so that I could have dragged it backwards all the way to Colon and it wouldn\u2019t have shown the slightest inclination to dig in.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I got very muddy hanging over the bow, sorting it out &#8211; all the while feeling very glad I have a small boat with an anchor I can lift on deck with one hand (while holding on to the other side of the pulpit for dear life with the other).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Magnus from <em>Lulu<\/em> turned up in his dinghy just as all this was coming to an end &#8211; kind of him to offer to help but, as I say: small boats have their advantages.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, by the time I had gone through the whole palaver all over again and <em>Samsara<\/em> showed no sign of shifting no matter how much the gearbox protested, the evening had advanced well towards the hour of the beer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And guess what: At two o\u2019clock in the morning, I was awakened by the wind charger screaming with delight at being able to produce 400W from a 30kt gust &#8211; right out of the northeast.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; This is The Graveyard in Linton Bay, one of the most popular anchorages on the Atlantic coast of Panama. You can see four wrecks (not counting the one in the middle sitting upright on its bilge keels with just the mast sticking out vertically like a lamp post). All of them dragged their anchors &#8230; <a title=\"Dragging\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/dragging\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Dragging\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3128"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3152,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3128\/revisions\/3152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}