Worse than expected

South Pacific Familyadventure 2008
Claes Brodin
Wed 15 Mar 2023 02:52

At 20.00 hrs we had a basewind of 35-40kts from WSW and soon enough the wind was gusting over 50kts (military station on the island measured 58kts). For two hours our Rocna anchor managed to keep Dora Mac in place and then suddenly lost grip. The speed with which we were drifting across the bay was surprising and it took time before we had full command on engine and manouvering from the flybridge(best lookout). The canvas on the flybridge was torn down and saved by Mercedes while I was fighting to get control over Dora Mac and her fast drifting towards the fleet of fishing boats (it takes a LOT of enginepower to manage to get the bow up in the wind and with an anchor drifting freely on the bottom).

Finally the anchor got hooked in the middle of the port (where the ferries drop anchor for landing).

We directly understood that it got jammed by something on the bottom but it saved us for the moment .

Being hooked up we could do a fast damage control and found (except for canvas torn apart) the port side nav.light blown away,and the anchorrope (to releive windlass from weight) broken.

I contacted the coastguardofficer on call to let them know our situation and was surprised by his statement:

"You went to anchor allthough a coastguard officer told you to stay at the dock ?  Who gave you permission to anchor in the bay ?"  and  "You took the advise from a fisherman and not from the coastguard ? "

I had to tell him we needed to focus on our situation right now to make him stop and were told we needed to be away before ferry arrival or heavy fines would be due .

The rest of the night passed without much sleep and at sunrise it was time to act again.


PNG image

PNG image

PNG image

JPEG image