Position: 35 14.02 S 174 10.13 E
At anchor, Motuarohia Island
Wind: NNW, F5 strong breeze, gusty
Sea state: rippled Swell: nil
Weather: showers, mild

Last night, with a strong wind warning extant, before turning in I decided to turn the plotter and the anchor alarm on, which, it turned out, was just as well. At around 0100 the alarm sounded. I had a look at the plotter and our surrounds but initially concluded it might have just been the anchor cable stretching out in the fresh breeze. I reset the alarm to a small number (15 meters) as assuming the cable had stretched out to its full extent than any further movement would mean that the anchor was in fact dragging. Sure enough, about 15 minutes later the alarm went off again. Now I was worried. I decided we had better weigh anchor and reset it.

I donned foul weather gear (a light drizzle was falling), started the engine and proceeded to the foredeck and commenced cranking in the anchor. Strange, I thought, the cable has quite a load on it and is up and down. Seeing as we had over 20 meters of cable still out, it should have been stretching out well ahead of us. I continued cranking. Less than a minute later the anchor came up in a bight of chain wrapped around its stock, the remaining15 meters or so of chain hanging in a useless bight in the water. No wonder we were dragging.

I motored out into clear water where I had plenty of room to drift and therefore time to unfoul the snag without worrying about drifting onto rocks. It was a tight wrap around the anchor stock and took me some time with the judicious use of a couple of lines to take the weight of the anchor while I untied the knot of chain from around the stock and restowed the cable in the cable locker. At 0205 I had the anchor back on the bow roller, all the chain stowed and was ready to re-anchor. I motored carefully back into the bay where we came to anchor again in five meters of water a hundred meters off the beach and a bit east of where we had anchored previously.

I reset the anchor alarm then made a cup of tea to unwind myself after the little bit of midnight drama before turning in again.

I have pondered what had gone wrong. The Rocna anchor has been very reliable and this is the first time it has fouled since I bought the anchor over ten years ago. I had sailed to anchor as usual; however, I did have the engine running and after dropping the mainsail and letting go the anchor, I had backed down on the cable with the motor in reverse to ensure the anchor was set properly. I think the problem occurred while Sylph drifted around with the tide and the light winds under the lee of the steep hill that makes up the western end of Motuarohia Island. The stock of the anchor must have still been a little proud of the bottom and while we drifted with no weight in the cable it must have wrapped itself around the anchor. Then, last night when the wind picked up the anchor would have simply been pulled out sideways exacerbated by the fact that there was no effective scope on the chain. In hindsight I probably should not have anchored quite so close to the NW end of the bay. I chose this corner thinking it would give me good shelter from the strong NW winds that were forecast, which it did; however, what I had not taken into account was that the wind tended to wrap around the steep hill on the bay’s western end making it more of a nor’ easterly, effectively putting Sylph on a lee shore, something I always try to avoid if at all possible.

This afternoon I intend to move to another bay – Awaaaroa Bay on the SE end of Moturua Island. This should offer us better shelter from the SW winds which are forecast for tonight and tomorrow, as well as being a change of scenery.

All is well.