A windy night with anchors dragging, and everyone is yelling. This is the definition of a Squamish. A freaky wind that comes from a surprising direction that no one is expecting and wind with an extraordinary strength that seem like gale force or worse.
This was a warm sunny Saturday; there were approximately 200 boats in the bay. Boats were anchored everywhere. There are only 36 buoys in the bay so we spent most of the day doing what all boaters do, being entertained by watching the masses anchor once all of the buoys are taken. Needless to say there were some real antics going on. As the sun set and everyone was settling down for the evening it seemed like a perfect end to a beautiful summer day. I had to be up again at 4:30 am which comes early so I was in bed by 10 pm. In the deepest of sleeps the first thing I heard was my husband telling me that the wind was up and boats were dragging. This is always scary, not only for the boats dragging but for the ones still hanging on to their anchor. There is always the fear that the ones dragging will drag right over your anchor or even smash into your boat. As I looked out I could see that we were not the only ones up. There were lights popping on all over the bay.
Out in the dark we could hear people yelling, voices filled with worry and horror that they were dragging. We switched on our huge floodlights and discovered two sailboats bearing down on us. Neither boat could start their motor. One of the boats was heading right for our bow. Our boat the
So now it is one in the morning and everyone is wide-awake. With the coffee freshly made I offered everyone a cup. Discussions about what happened were on going. The boat that we had tied up on our starboard side had decided to pull in their anchor. When they did this a curious thing happened. As they pulled in their rode, the sailboat on our port side moved. So now we knew what had happened to the second sailboat's motor. He had scooped up the first sailboat's anchor rode in his prop. The problem was that when we swung during the night, the sail boat tied to our starboard side and with him being connected to the sailboat on our port side, his anchor line would tangle up our anchor line. This is not a good thing.
There was nothing anyone could do, but take all the anchor rode from the starboard side sailboat and give it to the port side sailboat. Have I confused you yet? If not, you are doing better than most. After the transfer of the anchor rode things seemed to settle down. The wind finally abated and most of the boats had re-anchored. Some headed right to the marina and tied up for the night.
As morning came it was a strange picture. With one sailboat tied to our starboard and another anchored just 10 feet off our port, we got some really strange looks. In the light Atrevida is a big boat, 80 feet long, she used to be a BC commissioned ferry. When standing on the bridge you are around 27 feet off the water. I can only imagine how terrified the people on the dragging sailboat must have felt when we turned on our floodlights and lit up our bow. In fact, the yelling increased in volume. There was nothing they could do, with no motor and an anchor that was not holding, all they could do was yell. And that they did. As they came closer we were now telling them to put their fenders down, as a hit was eminent. With boat poles out and fenders down the sailboat slid down our anchor cable and bounced off our bow. They tossed us their bow line and we pulled them to us and tied them to our starboard side. As we tightened up the ropes from our boat to theirs we decided that it was safer to have them stay the night tied to us then have them try to re-anchor. On the other side of us another sailboat was dragging and in trouble. He had started his motor when he started dragging but the motor died and he was at the mercy of the wind. We watched as he played out all his rode (anchor cable) and finally his anchor caught. We offered to tie him up to our port side but he said that he would be fine. If he had more problems he would blow his air horn and then we could go with the dinghy and pull him over to us and tie him up. of the day things seem to be much simpler. As we helped the first sailboat recover his anchor from the second sailboat, it was apparent that it was not the anchor rode that was tangled in his prop but his painter line from his dingy. The second sailboat had truly just dragged over the first sailboat's anchor, unsetting it. By 8 am I was donning my scuba diving equipment to see if I could free his painter line from around his prop. There was only 5 or 6 wraps around the prop and shaft. A few minutes of work and everything was set right. By 10 that morning both sailboats were on their way to other bays and more summer adventures. Hopefully not the kind of adventures we all just went through.
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