Issue 138: May/June 2021
I was a Southern California kid, still a bit lost in my early 20s, when I decided sailing was something I should be doing. It pains me to type these words, but my motivation stemmed from pop-culture delusion. Miami Vice’s Sonny Crocket made marina liveaboard life cool, and from Captain Ron I learned that swagger was all that was needed to get a boat from point A to point B.
One day, I approached a local charter operator in Santa Barbara to schedule a Catalina 25 for a coming weekend. Bow from stern was about all I knew, and I was confident there was not that much more to know. Besides, the outboard that hung off the back of that sailboat looked clean and easy to start, much newer than the one I’d grown up with on my dad’s runabout. And I’d been a guest on a sailboat in the Caribbean years before, where I’d pulled on ropes to raise sails, cleated them off—I even steered that boat, a bigger boat. This small sailboat before me would be even easier.
“No, no, I won’t need a captain, just my girlfriend and me; we’ll probably head out to Santa Cruz Island for an overnight.”
Instead of taking my credit card, the operator, an old salt, invited me to sit. Then he started a conversation. He seemed to want to get to know me and it clicked right away; he could see that I belonged here, and he was looking for a worker. I began preparing my response for when the offer came—I would thank him, let him know that I was happy, that the tips and the hours at the restaurant where I worked would be hard for him to beat. But thank you, anyway.
“Well, it sounds like you’ve spent a lot of time on boats.”
“Oh yeah, lots.”
“And you can cleat a line? Flake a sail?”
“Totally.”
“When you anchor, how much scope do you usually use?”
“How much scope…” A trick question? “Um, I don’t think I’ve ever used any scope.”
My inexperience—greater than I could have imagined—was laid bare and my sailboat chartering hopes dashed. But the old salt was gracious. His radio crackled and after a short exchange, he turned to me and asked, “Want to go for a ride?”
For the next hour and a half, I bounced around in a skiff as we ran a mission to deliver some things to charterers on one of his boats anchored up the coast. The whole time, we talked boats and sailing over the din of the outboard. I dropped the façade, asked questions, and listened. It’s not saying much to say my knowledge tripled during that short trip, but it’s notable that my sailing interest was piqued by something more substantive than Hollywood.
Being a touch-the-hot-stove kind of learner, I knew my only path into this world would be aboard my own sailboat. I started saving. Two years later, I bought a Newport 27 in Ventura harbor and began teaching myself to sail—and to anchor.
I started with a 15-pound Danforth on rust-stained, 1/2-inch three-strand. I soon upgraded to a 22-pound Bruce with 125 feet of 1/4-inch chain and new three-strand. The years passed, the boats grew, the ground tackle grew, the rode became all-chain, and a windlass relieved my back and arms. But through it all, one thing remained constant: 7:1 scope.
It’s what the old salt in Santa Barbara told me was the right answer to his question. I’ve dropped the hook thousands of times since then, on every kind of bottom imaginable. Only when it wasn’t possible—anchored in 125 feet of water, or med-moored, or anchored bow-and-stern in close quarters—have I not set 7:1 scope.
And I know that for many, especially when hanging from a new-generation anchor on all-chain rode, 7:1 scope is considered excessive. (And, it can also mean anchoring apart from others to accommodate larger swing radiuses.) But in all those years, in all kinds of conditions, my boat has dragged once—only once—and it was shortly after the hook was set and we were aboard. I write that off as a fluke (har, har), accepting that it was a false set, that the anchor caught on something on the seabed that gave way.
What I wouldn’t give to let that old salt see me now. To see the cocky kid who said he “doesn’t use scope,” now the editor of a sailing magazine writing this column in an issue dedicated to anchoring.
Does that make me the old salt?
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
