Scared Shipless on Long Island Sound 6/4/2011

[Smithbrother]

Hi Folks,
Took the 2100sc3 out of Clinton Harbor and headed to Block Island around 12:30pm. The whole day it was blue sky, white clouds and calm water anchored at Duck Island with 60 feet of Rode out. At around 1745hrs someone turned on the wind full tilt. Our flat calm became heavy rollers with white caps all around. I look up and see that the 150yard distance I had from the rocks was now about 25 feet and I got the engine started to stay off the rocks and tried to get the anchor up. No Go! We were pitching and rolling so hard I could not send the admiral forward to try to retrieve it. Had her take the helm and I got far enough forward with a knife to cut us free.

A big yacht and other much larger boats were crashing into each other, waves were crashing over the rocks and the Coast Guard Channel went from quiet to people stepping on each other. Life Jackets went on and as I got out away from the limited protection of the jetty I saw a sail boat drop it's sail into the water and head for the rocks further west of us. Headed that way and saw two other bigger vessels going to it's aid. Got back to the Marina with water splashing over the bow and windshield into the cockpit and once secured to the dock, I helped others that were coming in. This was my first time out this year and a guy who said he has sailed the area for 25 years has never seen it blow up so suddenly without any warning. Had a beer and cigar and hope that next weekend is better... after a trip to West marine for another anchor.

Be safe folks,
Dave

[seapuppy]

Dave...
Wow...that sounds hairy to say the least...glad you two were able to keep your head and make it to safe port.....better the loss of the anchor than loss of boat and life......

hopefully next time it will be smooth seas.....

thanks for the report out....and extremely glad you two are safe...


SP

[shrew]

Saturday afternoon was definitely odd. NOAA was calling for a mix of 5-10kt and 10-15kt winds depending on location, with most being NW. That was DEFINITELY not 15 kt winds. Winds kicked up Sat. mid afternoon and blew pretty hard from the NE. I'd guess all of 25 kts with some stronger gusts. There were whitecaps in the protected little cove I was in too. I was going to head to Napatree/Watch Hill, but with winds relatively out of the north, that would have been a snotty anchorage for the weekend. I'm glad it all worked out. Lucky you remained on achor watch (even if it wasn't the middle of the night). And people wonder why I end up sitting up most of the night when it blows like that and we're on anchor. I don't want to wake up to the first inclination of a problem when I feel the boat go hard aground. by then it's too late.

I'm glad all worked out, regardless of the stressful situation. I'll choose to loose an anchor and line rather than the boat every single time.

[Smithbrother]

Thanks guys,
Shrew glad you made it back ok too! I have a video of much calmer water as we got into Clinton Harbor but is not even close to what I had been thru 20 minutes earlier, I had my hands too full to videotape until we got into a calmer area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE4cdqgvQNY

Hello Smithbrother,

Thank you so much for the video of calmer water.

[jeffmeans]

You guys should check out an app I have on my (crappy) BlackBerry Storm. It's called MyAnchorWatch (www.myanchorwatch.com) and monitors your boat's position and the potential anchor drag, then sounds an alarm or sends a text message (if you're away from your boat) to another phone. It's one of the more expensive apps ($19.90) but really takes advantage of a SmartPhone's GPS capability. I've only used it a few times but it gives me piece of mind while at an overnight anchorage.

I've seen similar apps at the Android app store (an operating system I'll likely be moving to soon).

Hey Jeff,

Thank you so much for this wonderful information.Though it is costly, This apps is amazing.It is very useful.

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