Mooring at anchor - How does it work?

Mooring at anchor - Mediterranean Mooring

In Greece (and many other Mediterranean countries), an anchor is essential aboard your sailing yacht.
And that’s not just so you can drop your anchor in a beautiful bay at lunchtime, but also to make sure you’re safe in a harbor at night.
In fact, it is customary to moor by using your anchor in front and two lines at the back of your boat.
Mooring at anchor, also known as Med(iterranean) Mooring.
Wondering how that works?

The preparation

After all, good preparation is half the battle….

Make sure all tasks are well divided and clear on board.
Agree signals between the skipper and the person operating the anchor.
(Anchor down/up, stop, etc.)
An anchor chain makes a lot of noise, and often this prevents you from understanding each other during the maneuver.
The clearer the tasks are, the easier it is to keep the peace on board during docking.
Find a suitable spot at the dock where there is enough room for the width of your yacht.
Then sail past it (without docking) to check if there is a reason why no one is here yet (rocks underwater or something similar).
Also check in which direction the anchor chains of your possible prospective neighbors lie, to make sure you don’t cross them with your own anchor chain.
Make sure your fenders are hanging ready in the right place.
Generally, the right place is the widest part of the boat, about from the sidestay to the transom, because this is the part that will bring you up against your neighbors.
In addition, you also hang a fender at the very back of the transom, should you run into the dock with it.
Lay out two mooring lines aft with one end on the aft frog, and the other end under the sea rail, ready to throw to the quay.
Hang your anchor vertically in advance, so that later it can be lowered in one go, without hitting the bow.

The maneuver (1/2)

Make sure you have enough distance from the quay when you start the maneuver.
We always keep 100 meters as an ideal distance.
In many harbors, of course, this is not realistic, but still try to take as much space as possible.
After all, you always want to have as much anchor chain out as possible.
So when you have 70 meters of chain, ideally you want to have 65 meters out.
Again, of course, this depends on the space you have.
When you start to sail backwards, the first bit you “suffer” from your wheel effect.
The butt of the ship will pull in one direction and you cannot steer against this.
Once you have a little momentum, your rudder regains ‘grip’ and you can make sure you are back on the right course straight ahead.
Once you are at the spot where you want your anchor, you signal to the person operating the anchor.
The first time, estimating the correct distance may be difficult, but this gets easier and easier.
The one operating the anchor lowers the anchor while he/she keeps looking at the skipper to see when the skipper gives the stop signal.
So you never stop chaining until the skipper says so.
You do, of course, keep an eye that the chain does not run out before you reach shore.

The maneuver (2/2)

As you lower the anchor, continue to throttle backward.
This is because you want to maintain momentum so you can continue to steer properly without suffering from the wind effect again.
Remember, you can’t go any faster than your anchor winch can give chain, so take it easy.
If you throttle back too much, you have a chance of sailing the anchor loose, forcing you to start over.
When you have to dock between two yachts make sure there is someone standing on either side (if enough people on board) and watching the fenders.
From about five meters from shore put the engine in neutral – the anchor chain is still running.
At two meters from shore the mooring ropes are thrown, stop the anchor with the agreed sign and, if necessary, briefly put the engine in forward to slow down.
Then you put the engine back in neutral and calmly attach the mooring ropes.
Ideally, you’ll want these back to your yacht via a ring/bollard on the dock so you can adjust the distance from here.

Check it out!

When the stern is in the right position, with enough distance from the dock (but with the gangway to cross, of course), you are going to tighten the chain in front of the ship.
To do this, you make sure the engine is running about 1800 rpm in neutral (usually by pushing the button on the throttle), so the batteries have enough power.
You start to slowly pull the chain in and when you see that it is getting tension, you can use your foot on the chain to check that the anchor is not scratching.
Always have shoes on!
If you feel no movement and don’t see the chain falling back, then your anchor is usually well dug in.
After about five or ten minutes, check your anchor chain again.
Is it still as tight?
Does the chain still not move when you put your foot on it?
Then you can go enjoy an anchor beer and celebrate that it was another great day!

Sometimes you have bad luck...

… and the situation is not ideal.
Fortunately, there are solutions for that too!

Lots of crosswinds.
When there is a lot of crosswind, consider what is convenient for the position of your anchor.
Usually you then place it slightly slanted to windward.
You should also take the wind into account when going astern.
Usually the foreship blows away first, so it is advisable to arrive a bit slanting/slanting.
When you arrive at the dock, you naturally cast the windward line first.
Once it is down, you have plenty of time to calmly attach the line on the leeward side.
It is also important to tension the anchor chain a little faster.
Especially if you have no neighbors, otherwise you run the risk of getting completely blown away.
Another solution to this is to put the engine in forward when the stern lines are secured.
This keeps your boat straight and gives you more time to get your anchor properly tensioned.
Just make sure there are no loose lines left hanging in the water that could get into your propeller.

No room at the quay.
When the quay is already crowded with other yachts, you can also (in consultation with the owners) moor on two bows of yachts that are moored at the quay.
You will be moored between their anchor chains.
This works the same as the maneuver described above, only now you lay your lines to the bow of the boats behind you.
Ideally, you should pick two yachts of about the same length for this and, of course, keep enough distance.
Then you can either use the other boats to get to shore, or use your dinghy.
Shallow in front of the quay.
If there is a rock, shallow or other obstacle just in front of the quay, simply keep a little more distance.
If this is further than you can cover with the gangplank, you will have to use the dinghy.
If it’s also too far away to throw a line (or there’s no one there to catch it), you can choose to either swim the line or bring it to shore with the dinghy.

Not 100% confidence yet?

After reading this article, are you still excited about docking your boat this way?
No problem.
You can always choose to take one of our helpful skippers on board with you, book a couple of instruction days or join a flotilla where you’ll get help docking!

Multiple roads to Rome

Of course, there are more ways to safely moor your yacht.
In some places you have mooring lines, or you can anchor freely.
Also for these ways, you have to understand how it works, but once you get the hang of it, they are very fine systems.
Read more about them in our other articles!