Large anchors and small sails
Since I’ve been on about the same thing for the last three days, I’m going to take a break from talking about our Real Sailing Adventure plan and talk a bit more about Patagonia. We have been coached by our friends who have cruised there (or are there presently) to bring two things:
- Large anchors
- Small sails
If you’re curious about why they’d say that, check out this forecast from Windguru:
Purple and Red = WINDY!
For a much more dynamic representation, check out this extremely cool link! Yup, they don’t call that area the Roaring 40s (latitude) and Furious 50s for nothing!
Yeah, there is *no such thing* as too much anchor down there. People using 80-pounders (where the anchor salesman’s spec sheet calls for a 40) say they want to trade in for 120-pounders.
I’ve also been advised that four shorefast lines of a hundred metres or so each, with a breaking strength around half the weight of the boat, are incredibly handy when you’re in 40 m of water, 60 m from each of three rocky shores.
And damned right I want to go there 🙂
While we’ve done it a few times so far, I suspect we’re going to get very good at the typing to shore thing after cruising there for a while.
Indeed. It’s weird to think of, when you first see the charts (or the digitized sketches that pass for charts), that you can have water so deep in a cove so small that 2:1 scope would have you swinging into the rocks on both sides.
A while ago I ran some rough load calculations on shorefast lines, just to see how close “sailor’s intuition” worked out to be. Turns out that a katabatic gust and a bit of chop, combined, completely justified the use of whopping great stuff like three-quarter-inch Dacron braid.
I actually think that many people use polypropylene line as it floats.
^^^^^^^^Yep, what Mike Marsh said!!! When I sailed down there on a charter, that is exactly what we had/did. It was INSANE. Seriously, INSANE – and so incredible. We saw only two other boats in two weeks. The willawaws at night will take some getting used to – they HOWL at night and it’s incredibly unnerving. Going to be an epic adventure for sure. Google Skip Novak if you haven’t already. That area is his domain and his boats are sweet! So excited for you guys!
Thanks, Brittany. I’ve definitely come across references to Skip Novak. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to meet him.