Yesterday I went quickly for a last food shopping ashore. When I came back I saw my OBM and Ruslana standing at the STB corner of the cockpit and was wondering why.

When I could hear her, I got the message that the neighbor boat, an about 12 m catamaran was drifting because the anchor did not hold.

There was already another neighbor with his dinghy at work.

But let me write the story and it’s development from the start, which happened a bit before I joined.

The other side neighbors recognized that the boat was drifting towards the shore. Luc was even up in the mast to repair something up there. Immediately he got down and took his dinghy and started to pull the drifting cat towards deeper water. Partially successful because the rudders of the catamaran did not touch the stones anymore.

That was then the moment I came in. First we tried to push the catamaran with 2 dinghies, each at a stern towards deeper waters. However, then the anchor was holding and thus hampered our actions. We needed to get the anchor up.

As the water is very shallow Luc could pull it up. But then it was needed to move it to deeper waters. I hold the anchor with one hand and hold on Luc’s dinghy with the other while Luc drove his dinghy. But I could not hold the anchor long enough.

Then Luc proposed to go on board of the catamaran to lift the anchor. Going on another boat without permission it’s skipper is the last thing one does. However, we had no other choice.

Luc could start the engines immediately and I went to the bow for working at the anchor. Quickly the anchor was up and Luc drove the boat towards deeper waters where we dropped the anchor again. However, the anchor did not hold. Thus up again. But where to go in a bay, which is very crowded. As one boat was leaving, we waited for a a few moments to use this opening space.

At the end we could drop the anchor and I estimated that I got a bit more than 20 m of chain out. Luc tested the hold of the anchor by pulling backwards and we both gut the feeling the anchor had a good hold.

We went back to our own boats but I invite Luc and his wife for a beer at MaRe at around 1700 hours.

When it was just getting dark, the crew of the rescued cat returned. Luc and I went over to the boat to explain what happened. The faces of the crew were filled with surprise.