Over the years I have heard some pretty bad sailing stories from many different people and I am not saying this is the worst by any means, but I think it is up there with them!
1700
We are at anchor on the east side of Fornells bay to the south of the Island Sargantana. The wind has picked up to 20Knts from the south, but our anchor is holding well despite the reports that it is a poor holding area due to a lot of weed on the sea bed. We have out 55m of rhode in 7.3m of depth (30m Chain & 25m Rope).
1830
The wind increases to 25Knts still from the south. We are still holding and have not moved at all. However, the catamaran anchored to our south is now at least 20m closer to us.
2000
We sit down to dinner with the wind blowing between 20Knts to 25Knts. We have still not moved and the cat appears to be holding too.
2300
We go to bed. The wind is 20Knts from the south and both us and the cat are holding. We set our first alarm for 0100 and try to get some sleep!
0100
I am woken by the alarm, Carol has not slept at all and has been checking our position every 30 minutes. We have still not moved at all, but the cat has slipped over 100m and is now to the north of us by about 30m. Carol did not actually see it slip past us and we assumed that they upped anchored and moved into our lee so they could get better holding.
0130
We decide that a permeant anchor watch is needed as the wind is 25Knts and meant to be increasing to around 30Knts. Carol takes the first watch of 2 hours and goes up on deck.
0330
Carol wakes me and informs me that we have not moved at all and the wind is dropping off to around 15Knts. After double checking our position and that of the cat, which is still to our north an holding, we decide that permanent anchor watch is no longer needed and we both try to get some sleep. Our alarm was set for 0530 when the wind was due to swing round to the north.
0500
The wind changes to coming from the north and increases to 20Knts. I decided to go up on deck to check our holding. On looking out of the hatch I saw the cat had dragged and was now only 4 meters from our bow. By the time I had woken Carol with instruction to get the fog horn to wake them up and put my jeans on they were along side on our starboard. I banged on their hull to wake them and scrambled for fenders to get in between our boats. When they came on deck they did the same and when we were both happy that there was enough fendered protection between the boats we set about working out how to uncross the anchor chains.
0505
After much discussion in various languages (they were French and said they did not speak English, although they seemed to understand every bit of the discussions me and Carol were having between us!) we managed to convince them that it was they that had to move off as it was their chain over ours. Even on agreeing this and making attempt to move off they were still adamant that it was us that had slipped on to them, I had even pointed out the yellow special mark that they were anchored next to was now 100m to our south to which they just looked confused at and said it was us not them!
Also at this point another couple we had met in Mahon motored past us in their 36 foot yacht Magnum as their anchor had slipped during the night and put them dangerously close to the rocks on the north side of the Island Sargantana. They observed the whole incident.
0515
They were finally clear of us and our chain with only minimal scratches to both boats and we set about packing away the fenders.
0520
After watching them try to re-lay their anchor, which they never fully recovered, in the same place, they slipped again and swung round so that their starboard stern crashed into out bow on the starboard side. This put a very large crack at the bottom of their sugar scoop on the water line. I was sure this would cause them to take on water! They were then blown back onto us again which burst their dinghy on our bow roller and bent their solar panel bracket. They were refusing to use either of their engines to power away as they were convinced they would get our rhode wrapped around their prop. I pointed out that that did not matter as they had two engines and one was clear of the rope, but they still refused at which point I cut our rhode so we could drift free and motor clear of them.
0522
We motored in to the centre of the bay to decide what the best course of action would be. The facts of our situation were now that we had lost our main anchor (25Kg Plastimo Cobra, the best anchor in the world bar none if you ask me!), we had our dinghy in tow with our outboard still on it, the wind was around 20Knts, the waves in the entrance of the bay were at least 3m, our backup anchor (16kg Plastimo Cobra) did not have enough rhode to guarantee a good hold in the depth of water we could safely anchor in, there were three small marinas in the bay that we were both to long and deep to get into.
0540
We decided that the best course of action was to try and pick up a mooring buoy at the very south of the bay next to the Club Nautico. The risks were that we would not have enough depth or swing room as it was a very small mooring field that was uncharted (and also unregulated, we found out later that all of the buoys were illegal!), however we were out of options mainly due to having our dinghy with out board still attached and in tow which meant that we could not leave the bay in such big swells.
0555
We approached the mooring field passing Magnum to our port side and informed them what had happened and what our plan was, they too had picked up a buoy on the edge of the mooring field.
0600
After identifying a white numbered buoy that was unoccupied (I had read that white mooring buoys were for visitors and at this point we didn't know it was not an official mooring field!) we circled it to make sure we had enough depth, came round into wind and Carol hooked it. I got a line through the chain loop at which point we realised that the buoy was not holding us and we had drifted back into the mooring field and were about to colide with a small dinghy. I tried to motor forward and thrust our nose back into wind, but our bow thruster did not have enough power to counter the 20Knts of wind that was now pushing on our port side. I accelerated harder to try and clear the small dinghy at which point it got sucked underneath our hull on the starboard side and our engine cut out. We had wrapped the dinghys' mooring lines around our prop.
0610
Mark from Magnum came across to us in his dinghy to lend a much needed hand! The good news was that the mooring lines we had wrapped were holding us and out of the three that were attached to the chain securing it to the sea bed, one was not tangled up in the mess under the boat. We managed to get this on to our port stern cleat and pull it in enough to see how it was connected to the chain. We surmised that if the two wrapped around the prop were cut the third would still hold. Mark returned to Magnum to get his wetsuit!
0630
Mark and I jumped in! I went under the boat with the scuba gear with Mark watching from the side to ensure I did not get tangled up and stuck under it. The ropes cut easily and the dinghy popped out from under us, miraculously it was still floating and had not sustained any damage, all be it full of water and missing it oars! We swam it over to another buoy and bailed out most of the water. After a final check under the boat and at the water line of the bow to see if their was any serious damage we got out and headed for a much needed hot shower!
0700
We managed to get one of the cut ropes tied on to the stern in place of the one undamaged one which we then tied to the bow and slowly swung her round. Crisis over; the buoy was holding, we had enough depth and swing room!
1000
I took our dinghy over to the Club Nautico and asked them what the score was with the damage to the dingy and cut ropes. He informed me that the mooring field was not owned or regulated by anyone and that the buoys were technically illegal! I asked his opinion on the holding power of the one we were on and he said that for a boat of our size and depth it would be very risky to stay there due to the age and size of what ever we were attached to and the fact that if we slipped 50m to the south we would be aground for sure! There were 30Knt winds predicted for that evening with worse coming the following day so we decided to head back to Mahon, which was the closest port with shelter and a berth big enough for us.
1103
After packing up our dinghy and securing everything inside the boat we set of back to Mahon, following Magnum out. On leaving the bay we were confronted with 4m waves just out side the entrance which we had no choice but to motor into, if we had turned side onto them I am sure we would have been un-rectifiably swamped. We motored for an hour in a roughly northerly direction until they became small enough for us to turn east and head for Mahon. It took us 4 hours, the wind was constantly on our nose at about 10-15 knots and we did not have energy to beat all the way there, so did it all on the motor keeping a close eye out for the numerous lobster pots we passed on the way there!
1500
We make it back to the Ocibar floating island in the Port De Mahon. There was 20Knts of wind hitting us on our port side bow as we backed up into the same spot we were in last time (because we knew that the bow lines were good there) and as we got the port side stern and bow lines on the wind shifted to blowing at 25Knts on our starboard bow and blew us back onto the dock and across the leader for the port bow line, which promptly wrapped it's self round the prop and stalled the engine!
1520
With the boat now tied up securely and having 4 springs and both available bow lines a lot of Jack Daniels was consumed.
On reflection at the time of writing this I am not sure we would have done anything differently and the experience has defiantly taught us some valuable lessons, as well as increased our confidence for sailing in bad weather and large seas!
We have also spoken to the dive school at Fornells and they have agreed to try and recover our anchor and chain tomorrow morning for only €50 which is much more cost effective than the €1000 it would have cost to buy again new!
