How To Anchor Safely – So You Sleep Well!

In 2003, I began a new life as a liveaboard boat gypsy. I’d spent at least a year investigating what kind of boat to buy and viewing numerous examples, made from various materials and with different attributes. A book about how to choose the right boat for the liveaboard, boat gypsy lifestyle is swirling about in my head and my computer along with several other books I have planned!

However, I also took quite a lot of training to prepare myself for a life on the ocean wave, even though I’d started dinghy sailing aged about ten, an age at which things learned, stay with you. So I understood how sails worked and the points of sail and the principles of sailing. My new training filled in the many gaps, like diesel engine maintenance, navigation, radio, radar, first aid, sea survival and much more.

My new knowledge included how much scope (chain) to put down when I anchored and there it largely ended. Now, being of relatively modest means and marinas being quite expensive on a day rate in high season (and that’s being kind really), I found myself living at anchor all summer every summer. Sometimes it was tidal and the boat was pulled this way and that, sometimes not. Sometimes it was crowded with other boats at anchor, or on moorings, or on both which can make swinging circles quite interesting. Sometimes the seabed was clean deep sand, other times mud, shingle or even foul. Sometimes the water was clear enough to see, sometimes not, sometimes there would be a reef not far from the sand where my anchor lay, around which a chain could get wrapped and snagged. Sometimes the water was shallow, sometimes deep, right up to the shore. Sometimes anchors become crossed, sometimes other people drag into you, sometimes the weather is kind, sometimes not, sometimes it’s expedient to use a line ashore, or a second anchor and so it goes on and on.

On one occasion when I used a tripping line a motor boat came along and moored itself on my tripping line! Living at anchor, sometimes for just one night but sometimes for weeks I discovered much about the subject – often the hard way and sometimes the very hard way. I’ve dived on my anchor and dived for other yachtties on their anchors too. I’ve pulled off weed, fishing nets, car bonnets, masts and push pits and goodness knows what. Nothing could have prepared me for a life at anchor, but my book How To Anchor Safely – So You Sleep Well! can prepare you, whether you want to anchor a lot or a little. It can’t change the weather, prevent you getting sick in a remote place, or stop your dinghy from being stolen, but it can prepare you for all that’s in store, help you prepare better, cope better and I hope, as the title suggests, sleep better.

I really saw writing How To Anchor Safely – So You Sleep Well! as a labour of love and a chance to give something back to like minded people after my years of odyssey and pleasure. It’s not inexpensive in paperback, that’s because of the numerous pictures, but I sincerely believe it is a good investment and frankly it’s very affordable indeed as an e-book. Either way I hope you find it very helpful.