We’ve had our first close encounter of the boat kind. Actually it was more than a close encounter, it was a collision. Technically we were in the Sea of Abaco, so even though we were at anchor and the other boat thought they were at anchor, it was a collision at sea. Before you panic, however, our boat seems fine and Mary Beth and I are only a little sore from trying to minimize the damage to both boats in 25 kt winds.
As you probably know we’re heading over to Florida and then on toward home as soon as we get a good forecast for the passage and particularly the Gulf Stream crossing. The weather is not cooperating (yes I’m sure you’re shocked as we are – NOT – the weather never cooperates here), so we’re still anchored in the Bahamas but on the northwestern edge of the Abacos, on the west side of Great Sale Cay. Mary Beth is very disappointed by this because there is clearly no sale at all here, let alone a great one, since there are no people, no houses and definitely no stores.
We dropped anchor here as the sun was heading toward the horizon in the west after a long and lovely sail from Manjack Cay. We finished our preparations for the ocean crossing including deflating our paddleboard and dinghy, getting out the liferaft and storing things below or lashing them to the deck. After a great dinner we relaxed a bit and went to bed. The wind was blowing pretty hard, but being protected by the Cay (island), the water had only a light chop and it was a comfortable anchorage. We were pretty tired from an early start to the day and our labors to get the boat secured for sea.
Last sunset in the Bahamas:
Just as we were drifting off to sleep there was a loud thump and our boat shuddered. I could almost hear our boat screaming “I’m Hit, I’m Hit!”
I thought our anchor was dragging, so I was on deck quickly to see what was going on. I came up through the hatch and there was a large trawler-style power boat bobbing and banging against our side. There was nobody in sight aboard although a few lights were on. I yelled loudly several times, but there was no response so I focused on assessing what was happening and how to address it. I did the best I could to hold the boats apart (called fending off) while yelling for Mary Beth to get on deck ASAP and turn our foredeck light on. It was apparent that one of us had dragged anchor into the other. Mary Beth was on deck in an instant (still in her nightgown) and she started our engine and joined me in yelling and fending off. With her managing the stern I moved forward to keep the bows apart and to see what was going on with the anchors. Ours had held, which was a miracle since there were now two boats hanging on it in 25 knot winds. The other boat’s anchor had ridden all the way up our chain and was stuck hanging from the chain between the water and our deck. This was not a good situation to put it mildly. The wind force was keeping the boats pinned together and pushing with all my strength I could not keep them from rubbing and banging. And of course, it was pitch black out with no moonlight to help.
We finally roused the guy onboard the other boat; he was completely befuddled and had clearly been asleep. He also acted like he may have enjoyed happy hour quite a bit earlier in the evening. He was single-handing (only person on the boat) and seemed to have trouble grasping what had happened. MB and I finally made him understand that his boat had dragged, snagged our anchor, and was pounding into us and if he didn’t soon help us, both boats were going to get pretty banged up. All this communication is yelling because the wind is strong and noisy. He got his engine started and said “just tell me what to do”, but either couldn’t hear us shouting instructions over the noise of the wind and waves, or he panicked to the point of inaction and then over reaction. At this point I am on the bow trying figure out how to get his anchor off our chain and MB is on the stern trying to get bumpers in place to protect our boat and fending off to keep him from ripping our dinghy outboard and our solar panel off our boat. He yelled that he would pay for the solar panel and not to worry about it, but given this is a critical piece of our daily equipment for our cruising life and we are in the middle of nowhere, I wasn’t exactly in agreement!
We finally got him to let out more of his anchor chain and move his boat forward which gave us some slack in his chain to work with. With both of us on the bow pulpit we were finally able to pull enough slack in the chain to get his anchor off our chain and back in the water. This literally took all of our strength and we are both a bit sore and bruised the next day from the effort. He drifted back about 30 feet and appeared to be anchoring again there. With lots of yelling on our part about him being too close, he finally realized he needed to move farther away. He eventually appeared to give up anchoring, yelling he would just let the boat drift back to Miami and motored off to the west. He did agree to pay for damages if there were any, but it was too dark and we were too tired to check out our boat thoroughly at that point.
As far as we can tell there is no significant damage. However, at one point his chain was under our boat and dragging on our keel and rudder so we dived under the boat to check everything and make sure that all looks ok before we head across to Florida. Damage to the rudder would have been a very bad thing, but everything thing looked fine under there.
The frustrating thing is that there was nothing we could have done differently to prevent this. We had anchored properly well apart from other boats. Everybody gets to experience anchor dragging eventually since boaters have no control over the bottom conditions, but having the proper amount of anchor line/chain out minimizes the chance of dragging. He clearly did not have enough chain out and may not have set his anchor properly.
Another adventure! All’s well that ends well I suppose.