A couple of days ago, our cat Willow started growling and a few seconds later I heard an anchor splash a few feet off our beam.
At the time I was in a bay that hosted a half-dozen boats with plenty of room to anchor anywhere and no need at all for a 48-foot cat to drop an anchor ten feet off my starboard side on a very short scope. Which, obviously, was pissing off Willow greatly, had me looking for fenders, and wondering just when did folks cruising start anchoring like it was a downtown parking lot.
The answer to the question remains somewhat hazy but I distinctly remember that in the early 90s the SOP was to anchor as far as humanly possible away from any boats already anchored...
Sure there were the odd exceptions of up close and way too personal anchoring tactics. One that stands out was when friends of ours on a Simpson cat had a bowspritted boat come up behind them so close that when they actually dropped the anchor it landed in one of their sugarscoop transoms (apparently caused by excessive imbibing of Funador brandy).
Of course, even back then bareboats already had a pretty horrible reputation for anchoring way too close but somewhere along the line it would seem the practice has become the norm and not just among bareboat folks but with term charter crews (who really should know better) and the general population of cruisers.
These days its not unusual to see a big bay, mostly empty and a small knot of boats anchored one atop the other to the point that some of the boats are putting out fenders.
It makes me wonder...
...where I can find a CD of a heavy metal polka band covering Captain Beefheart.
Listening to Temperance Movement
So it goes...
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