We then jumped in the dinghy, and went to the Marina. A few hours later, after we had been back on the boat for about 10 minutes, Dawn called me to the deck to watch a 40’ FP Lavezzi charter boat cut across our bow while anchoring. The charterer evidently had no idea what he was up to. Within seconds, he was settling back towards us, beam on, with our second anchor rode stuck under the front of his rudder. Well, didn’t this get us to screaming – all for naught, as they were all young Parisians, with very little of the English language among them. The little French I own to doesn’t work at times of high stress, either. He motored away in time to miss us, but was tethered between us and our anchor. I let the anchor rode fly, but the end was firmly tied deep in the anchor locker. I had hoped he would simply stop and back up to get the rode to fall from his rudder, but it was not going to happen. As time ran out, and we faced him either pulling my other anchor out or banging into us, I ran back to the cockpit, got my emergency knife, ran forward and cut the rode.
I quickly entered the water to retrieve my anchor, chain, and rode; along with two young bucks from the Lavezzi. Within a minute, the Lavezzi had cleared the area, and the rode disappeared, hopefully having simply run out of the rudder without touching the propeller. There was no way to stop the stunned fellow at the helm. One of the young men from his boat surfaced with my roughly cut and unravelling rode and handed it to me, just as another sailor arrived in his dinghy, having watched the debacle/spectacle, and wanting to help. Well, the sailor, Mike, from the s/v “Idunno” (Yeah, what kinda boat name is that?) helped me reset the second anchor, and left, declining a cold refreshment.
What would have happened if:
1. we didn’t have two anchors out;
2. we were not aboard;
or
3. the anchor rode was all chain and shackled inside the anchor locker as normal?
Initially, I was quite upset; but it took me very little time to realize these people were on vacation and shouldn’t have it ruined by me. Dawn and I were likely greener than they, when we first chartered with Jean Beltrandi and Ken Ward some 20+ years ago: I didn’t know what an anchor snubber was, and we listened to the chain clang at the bow night after night, while Ken tested the anchor twice by hauling the boat up to it in the middle of the night (with the expected results). Anyway, all went well, and when the embarrassed Frenchman swam over to make peace with me, all I could do was say in my poor French that all was well, it was just an accident, and I hoped they just enjoyed the hell out of their short vacation.
Here is a pic of me just finishing the new eye where I had cut the anchor rode.
