Second thoughts

So here we sit, as snug as the proverbial bug, nestled into the proverbial rug. Off our bow is 65 pounds worth of Mantus set hard in the bottom mud. Between it and the boat lay 80 feet of chain, snubbed by two 15 foot lengths of 5/8s 3 strand, properly protected from chafe. With a cold front in the offering we would have laid out 100 feet of chain, but No Name is a tight and crowded anchorage where thought must be given to swing room, with several other members of the cruising tribe sitting nearby.

This afternoon, while the crew of Kintala enjoyed some time on shore with friends from Skimmer, and visited new friends who showed us around their trawler, a really new looking Island Packet dropped anchor just off our port side and slightly behind us. We didn't see them come in, didn't talk to them, and never really thought much about them. They were big boys on their big boat and not upwind of us. The only concern was that they had given us enough room to swing past their bow. The front would pass with the winds clocking from south to north-north-west, twisting every boat in the harbor clockwise. Watching the radar this afternoon I expected a rather easy passage, but a pretty quick swinging of the winds. It would bear watching.

And so it was. Late evening the rains started and we closed up the boat. The rains got harder, the wind moaned in the stays, and the boat started to swing and sway as the confused gusts that come with a front swirled around. Looking out the port side ports it wasn't at all clear that we had the room we needed to have our stern clear the Packet's bow. Grabbing foulies I headed outside in the driving rain in case we needed to motor ahead a bit. Kintala swayed some more and started to swing quickly in a text-book frontal passage wind shift; fully 180 degrees in about a minute. I couldn't have turned her that fast using the engine.

As we swung it was clear that we were going to have plenty of room forward of the Island Packet. In fact there was way more room than expected. Indeed, there was way more room than there should have been. It was a bit confusing. (For those of you who haven't ridden out a cold front passage in a crowded anchorage, confusing is often the name of the game. Visibility is poor in heavy rain, it is normally dark, boat lights and background shore lights easily lead to illusions of motion that are not really there, and distances can be near impossible to judge. All it all it can add up to a few moments of shear excitement.)

As every other boat in the anchorage started the swing to the west and then north, the Island Packet stayed facing south. And that is when I realized they had drug away from us and fetched up against the mangroves and shallow water at the edge of No Name Harbor. No wonder there was so much room.

The rain faded away quickly. The maximum winds were probably less than 40 knots. Just about a non-event compared to what we have come to expect. Yet, somehow, that big old boat had dragged merrily away. A couple of us shone spotlights at the ports trying to get the crew's attention. Two from a nearby boat launched their dink and rowed over to tap on the hull. After a minute or two the Island Packet crew came up from below, having been totally unaware of their short drift into the trees. A couple of minutes later enthusiastic use of the bow thruster pivoted them off the shallow spot, they motored close past our starboard side.

“Any damage?” Deb asked as they went by.

“No,” came the reply, which was good to hear.

“How much scope did you have out?”

(Here I must digress for a moment. Deb is the scope scoping-out master. 5:1 makes her very unhappy. Less than 4:1 will simply never do. 8:1 is fine, 10:1 is better.)

“I don't understand what happened. We had 30 feet out”.

Thirty feet! That is less than a boat length. We use more than 30 feet of line to tie Kintala to a dock. How in the name of all that is wet and salty does the crew of a Island Packet 40+ footer think that 30 feet of scope will hold in anything more than a gentle breeze? It can't be possible that they knew nothing of the impending weather. It is even less possible that they knew of the impending weather and thought 30 feet of scope would do. That they were alongside and slightly behind us, and not upwind, is our good luck break of the month; maybe the year so far.

They stopped about a boat length off our bow, where I gently informed them that was no place to drop a hook. I suggested they move out by the inlet, set the anchor, and let out about 100 feet of chain. (Several boats left this morning to head to the Islands. We had moved Kintala well into the harbor in deference to the coming weather, leaving plenty of room at the far end for wayward Island Packets.)

The Island Packet is gone and hopefully set secure, far away from us. But we have learned via the grape vine that the sailboat now upwind of us, a monstrous looking thing with a massive amount of freeboard and a giant pilot house, has a broken windlass...and is riding to 60 feet of rode.

I sure hope the wind doesn't blow very hard tonight. And I am having second thoughts about some of the members of the tribe.

Figured it out ...

... we think.

We finally got the chance to thank Sean, the Captain from Sirenuse who rode Kintala to a soft landing the other day. He is every bit the professional I suspected. He is also an ex-airplane driver. Turns out he flew the jet for the people who own Sirenuse, then transitioned over to managing and driving their mega yacht. (It is a story I have heard from several ex-airplane current Ship Captains. Wish I had thought of it!) The current owner of Sirenuse has become very involved in the environmental movement, particularly the "ocean is being killed by plastic" part. As a result Sirenuse is for sale, to be replaced by a more expedition / work oriented vessel better able to support scientific research into ways we might prevent killing off the sea, and thus ourselves. It was all pretty interesting.

Anyway, of coure we chatted about Kintala dragging her anchor. Sean, (who lives on Sirenuse with his wife and daughter) noted us when we pulled in. Turns out he grew up on a sailboat and thinks our Tartan a pretty boat. He was surprised to see her dragging since he knew we had been sitting there for nearly 24 hours through the winds and tide change. As we talked though, we think we figured out what happened.

We had dropped the hook in about 10 feet worth of water, on a short rode, mud bottom, and just a few boat lengths outside the mouth of the channel Kintala ended up in. That channel, and its entrance, are dredged to 26 feet. It is likely our anchor was setting just a few feet from that drop off, and probably on a slope. The anchor lost its purchase but, instead of grabbing hold again, it just slid down the hill. In a very few feet of lateral movement it would have been barely touching the bottom, if it was touching at all. At that point Kintala was free to go were ever she wanted.

I had read about the danger of anchoring on a slope leading to deeper water, but it never occurred to me that such would be the case in a river by a short, man-made, channel. Yes, the chart was marked with a little "6" near the place we dropped the hook, with a little "26" shown in the channel. And no, I didn't add those up to equal "PAY ATTENTION FOOL"! I will next time. We may also start using a little trick Sean shared with us when he anchors Sirenuse in unknown waters. After the hook is set he sends the tender out to make a loop around the boat with a little hand-held depth sounder, giving him an idea of the topography of the bottom under him.

Another cold front is due in here tomorrow night, blowing hard pretty much through Wednesday. We have some minor boat projects to attend to so we will be on board for the next couple of days. We know the hook is set hard, we have 75 feet of chain rode out, and we are pretty sure we knew what went wrong. Doesn't matter. We left the boat today for several hours to meet our old friends Bill and Ann, once-upon-a-time of Cowboy Up based at our marina in Carlyle. Now they live in Fort Luaderdale and are working on getting a bigger boat ready for full time living aboard. After several hours of serious catching up (they left IL more than 2 years ago) we fired up the dink and headed back down the river. We both gave a sigh of relief when Kintala hove into view exactly were we left her, each secretly convinced she had probably dragged her way past the Las Olas Blvd and 17th Street Bascule bridges, past the turning basin, into the Port Everglades Inlet, and out to sea.

It may take a while to get over thinking the boat is going to just sail away every time we leave her on her own.

Unbelievable

I am not even sure where to start with this story. I will not blame you at all if you don't believe a word of it.

We anchored yesterday early afternoon, backing down hard on the hook because it was a tight spot with a little less rode than we like. The wind blew, another cold front went through, tides changed and the current ran. Kintala stayed put. This morning the wind blew some more, the tide changed again, and the current ran. Kintala stayed put. By late morning the winds eased and the sun shone. We jumped in the dink, ran to shore for a couple of hours, headed back.

Kintala was gone.

Where the boat had been there was no boat, no mast, not a ripple, not a hint, nowhere in sight. That will do strange things to your heart.

We aimed for the spot where we last saw the boat, near the head of one of the man made channels that make up Ft. Lauderdale. As we got closer Deb spotted my hammock strung up on a boat tied broadside at the very end of the channel, starboard side to, in front of one of the million dollar houses. It was Kintala.

This channel is just a bit wider than she is long. On the docks along the channel were a BRAND NEW, 50+ foot sport fisher and, just behind her, a 70+ foot sailing boat. Kintala had pulled her anchor, then backed into and down that channel. The sport boat's owner was on board his new pride and joy, looked out the galley window, saw the bow pulpit going by just inches away, ran outside, and managed to fend the wayward Tartan off. Kintala then bumped the other sailboat's massive, steel, bowsprit. Two good Samaritans, (who have yet to make themselves known) who were chasing the runaway boat in a rowing dink but unable to catch up, findally did catch up as our boat fouled the other sailboat. They climbed on board, fended off, let the wind ease them the rest of the way down the channel and against the dock, hung fenders, tied dock lines, and went on their way.

 

And thus we found Kintala, tied serenely as if she was at her home pier, without so much as a scratch in the paint, having done absolutely no damage to any other boat as she went on her solo sail.

I still can't believe it.

Our friend Stephen, owner of another Tartan 42 we met in Oriental, was waiting around the corner for me to pick him up in the dink. (Something we had arranged while in town.) Back at our boat the three of us just stood around shaking our heads. A few minutes later a couple of Marine Unit Police Officers walked up, called by the sport boat's owner. They were as polite and professional as any two officials I have ever run across, and believe me, I have run across my share. The owner of the sailboat also showed up, inspected his ship and declared her totally unscathed. None of the assembled had ever heard of anything like this happening before, ever.

The space Kintala had landed in was so tight that we had to run a spring line from the bow back across the channel off her stern. It was the only way we could think of to get the bow pointed back at the river against the winds, (which had picked back up a bit). The Police Officers handled the line. We motored out into the clear, picked a spot in the middle of Middle River, dropped the hook, set it hard, reached for some cold ones ... and talked of Karma, Black Boxes, weird happenings, amazing efforts of complete strangers, stand-up Cops, gracious boat owners, and luck ... lots and lots of luck.

It is a few hours later and I am still at a bit of a loss. Kintala rocks gently on her rode as if nothing unusual has happened. The generator is purring along, I sit on port side settee looking for words, Deb is getting dinner. I can tell the story of it happening but I cannot get my head around what happened. For all of our struggles over the last years and months, for everything that broke, went wrong, failed, and didn't come up as planned, Kintala may still be the luckiest boat on the planet. She certainly is today.