Tom Cunliffe has sailed tens of thousands
of miles all over the world and has been a
Yachtmaster Examiner since 197820 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com NOVEMBER 2015
Years ago I was cruising the
Eastern USA and spent a night
in the perfect anchorage of
the Salt Pond on Block Island.
I remember it well for two
reasons. One was a lady I met
who suffered from insomnia
and so kept an anchor watch
whether she needed one or not.‘How do you pass the time?’ I
asked. ‘I get bored with the TV,’
she said, ‘so I watch the radar
instead.’ The policy had served
her well in the small hours when
the wind piped up to 40 knots
and boats began dragging
all around her. I’d had
to fend off a 30-footermyself that bounced off my
topsides at 0300. I learned a
hard lesson in the process.
It’s not always enough to
set your own anchor well.
When choosing a spot to let
go, it pays to scrutinise the
boats to windward of you. A
new-looking production boatanchored on toilet chain or a
dodgy old wreck lying to a piece
of thin rope isn’t going to fi ll me
with confi dence, but you’ll form
your own judgment. For a yacht
with a good sailor in charge and
decent ground tackle, anchoring
problems usually start with
someone else’s mistake.Watch out for the neighbours
PHOTOS: TOM CUNLIFFE UNLESS OTHERWISE STATEDPlastic? Raise your standards!
Clearsblocks
easily
Before you drop the hook, check who’s anchored to windward of youIf your boat
doesn’t have
proper glass
stowage,
adapt an old
wine rackI haven’t had a plastic drinking
vessel on any of my boats
since 1975. The argument that
glass ones will smash and be
dangerous is spurious, as is the
one about earthenware service.
I sail with a set of Langley plates
that were a wedding present.
They’ve crossed the North
Atlantic many times. I use
wooden ones at sea and I’ve only
broken two Langleys in 40 years- from a nasty drinking accident
in harbour. Why settle for less?
Anyone who drinks malt whisky
out of plastic is certainly not the
sort of chap you’d expect to fi nd
reading a quality journal like YM.
If, like me, your builder hasn’t
given you proper glass stowage
try knocking some up from an old
wine rack. Bottles and glasses are
much the same diameter. I don’t
know how my arrangements
would fare in a major knockdown,
but I’m not planning one of those
any time soon. If they all fall out,
it’ll be the least of my problems.When I bought
my current yacht
I found a jumbo-
sized ‘plumber’s
helper’ under
the sink. ‘Aha,’ I
thought. ‘Blocked
the glorious tool left by a
caring predecessor. If you
don’t have one on your boat
and you’ve ever suffered a
blocked sink, buy one now – a
decent example with a soft lip
inside the rubber ring, not a
cheap substitute. They are fun
to use and a whole lot better
than tackling those impossible
jubilee clips while lying with
your head in a locker after a
good dinner.Unblocking a galley sink is no different to
doing it at home, but get a decent plungerdrains, eh?’ I wasn’t wrong.
My previous boats all
had their sinks well below
waterline, protected by swan
necks in the pipes and cleared
by way of a manual pump.
Lovely. This one has her
sinks fractionally above the
waterline, but the pressure
head is minimal so they take
a while to empty. From time
to time, they block from sheer
lack of fl ow. I then revert to