Splash-Klang.

Trying to explain a joke, especially someone else’s joke is never a good idea as it takes an age….so

To explain ‘Klang’ then

The idea of ‘Klang’ is kind-of based on our modern idea and term of ‘Bling’ except that while ‘Bling’ is based on cheap Rolex watches and fake but bright jewelry and mostly seen on Essex girls on a boozy night out in Colchester . Klang though comes from the pen of the late Terry Pratchett and is a feature of young Dwarves living in the city of Ankh-Morpork while wearing their helmets backwards and carry a whole variety of axes and the like to look like real Dwarves back home. You’ll get a better idea of this if you have ever seen Peter Jackson’s take of ‘The Hobbit’ during the scene when the Dwarven band have been captured by the wood Elves and are being searched and stripped of multiple sharp objects…..kind-of like the ultimate stop and search in the forest of Notting Hill during carnival time.

Meanwhile….the real Dwarves back home are carrying just one plainly crafted but superbly balanced and razor sharp axe which can function as anything from felling axe to Orc slaying weapon and on the way serve useful purpose as precision tool.

The modern equivalent are the exponents of Bushcraft and survival who go into the woods equipped with multiple knives, axes and saws jut for a weekend camping. In one YouTube video clip I watched a Californian ‘prepper’ showing off his ‘get home bag’ in which he was carrying 5 different bladed objects for apparently different tasks. The joke there was that he didn’t carry water, or shelter, or food because he regarded them as being ‘too heavy’……anyway my apologies and that’s the joke over with for today : as Lord Vetinari says….if I feel like telling another one I will give fair warning.

If you are scratching your head and wondering what is going on today then please put the axe down very carefully and take a step backwards. Iv’e just spent the morning in my workshop where iv’e been sharpening my planes, chisels and the small axe I use for chopping kindling…..my ‘real’ axe sits on display at my writing station and never goes out with me when i’m out in the woods because people get so offended when I tell them what to do when they ask to borrow it.

This piece is actually not about axes and knives but all about anchors….my Splash-Klang.

Some readers may remember that I started this blog just after I bought my last boat, the little Hunter Liberty, off of a mooring in Portsmouth harbor, threw a whole load of useful gear on board and headed out into the Soylent for our first night of sea and anchor. We fetched up that night in Wootton creek and had an achingly cold night – perhaps THE coldest night I have ever spent aboard a boat anywhere and that includes the deep Southen ocean. Luckily I took an anchor, chain and rode with me because what I found on board was a tiny old CQR anchor coupled with a length of sheathless Kevlar cordage for it’s intended warp. The anchor we actually used was a cheap Chinese knock-off copy of a Lewmar Delta anchor but it was technically way over sized for the boat and anyway it stayed in the mud while we swung lazily to the current.

We sailed with that anchor for several years, in fact it was still aboard when I took the boat across the channel for it’s first France trip. In the meantime I did most of the sorting out of the boat that I could do – that included an early discovery that the previous owner ‘tidied up’ his running rigging by tying everything to everything else and not only that but he had ‘sorted’ his steering problems by re-attaching the rudder blade back to front ; it took the first 100 miles of the France trip to work out why the boat wouldn’t steer properly !.

Later on in that boat’s development I bought one and then a second modern type anchor (Rocna and Manson respectively) – some readers may even remember them becoming ‘Rocky’ and ‘Marilyn’ although I kept the old CQR aboard while never using it. Even later on I bought and fitted a stainless steel Pansy stove which made my sailing far more comfortable in the cold spring and even colder winter the next year…….comfortable that is aside from scorching my bare bum one night.

Eventually I came to get rid of excess gear such as the unused anchor during the boat’s refit but thought to try it out in the river, really just as much an experiment as anything. Why I tried to anchor the boat with what I thought to be an inadequate hook i’m never quite sure – except perhaps to see if it was as bad as I thought it could be. One thing in my favor was that I knew that the previous owner had used it during easy days out in the Solent and I guess that I also knew that i’m a bit of a thug when it comes to anchoring and always go for as big and heavy anchor as I can handle. Many years ago for example it was one of my jobs as mate on a Maxi yacht to stow and deal with the anchor gear – the boat being a retired racing Maxi yacht and not set up for long term anchoring : one job within the job was to climb up and out of the main hatch with the 100 Lb anchor over my shoulder and then again with at least as much weight in chain looped over my shoulders. Just as ‘by the way’ we once dragged that anchor in the Solent and once again off Ascension Island where the bottom is horribly loose coral debris.

Anyway…..on the night of my experiment I chose to try out the little CQR and its Kevlar rode (it had some chain by then) in the good muddy bottom of the river Tamar in a relatively deep water section below Pentille house. I turned in with the anchor set and my anchor lantern in the rigging and during quite high ebb flow – of course several hours later the tide turned and started flowing strongly back in and up again. The outcome of this story is that I had a peaceful night but woke up not in the same spot that I had anchored but a couple of hundred meters upstream. It was no big deal as the anchor had obviously started to bite again in the shallower section where we ended up…..it just made me grin. At the time I was deeply into the ‘tec’ of anchors and anchoring and it was just another incident to put down to the body of experience.

So, that little experience was quite funny because no problem was created and anyway I had moved on with my anchoring knowledge and even with my practical anchoring set up which worked all the way through my 110 day Brittany cruise. One of the main points of learning that I came out of that time with was to not have ‘standard’ or manufacturer approved weights of anchor and also not to carry them in the conventional way…..on the bow or in a bow anchor well. Instead I came up with a simple cockpit deploy and recovery system and stowage either aft, with me, in the cockpit or for the spare anchor (just as with LOTR Gimli and his 2 axe fighting technique I always carried 2 anchors) stowed below where it’s weight would be useful in a light and relatively unstable boat.

Another thing to say (about anchors that is) is that experience with my previous boat taught me to carry 2 anchors because several anchorages I used needed a Bahamian moor and later I often needed to set a stern anchor on the way into a beach landing and then used the best bower anchor dug in somewhere up the beach.

Going up one more size with the Liberty…….WABI”’ gets a 7 kg Manson anchor and 7mm chain

Up to date with anchoring problems.

Those readers and visitors who hang around these parts will know that I had a tough first trip out with the Pathfinder (bit of a bummer maan !) with many things failing ; one thing that didn’t let me down though was my anchoring via an old Admiralty pattern anchor and a length of nylon warp kept over from a previous project. However, my good friend and local blogger had a really bad time recently when he anchored his boat ‘Arwen’ off the foreshore in the Lynher river during a big spring tide.

Recently Steve was very kind to message me and tell me more about his problem there, then at the same time I got to send a few questions and messages back and forth with another small boat sailor who carried 4 anchors and had some seriously challenging times with his anchors. Now, admittedly he was in a somewhat severe situation as he was in a place that few sailors would ever want to go so in a way his experiences aren’t that relevant here – although his overall boat set-up certainly is.

Our man Steve’s problem happened in home waters and exactly the kind of place where other dinghy cruisers will go – I notice that sailing videographer and DCA ‘Pres’ Roger Barnes has been up there and during one of my own trips up there I had the odd looking ‘Paradox’ sail past where I was anchored and head up in that direction. So, i’m kind-of fascinated by problems that happen in home waters and as I have written before iv’e had 3 experiences of anchors dragging or not setting well in the same area. Just to put some meat on the bones with that piece of information, two incidents were actual dragging experiences using a Bruce (Claw) type anchor while the other was a Delta (Plough) anchor that took a long time to bite in the silty mud (soupy) in Sandacre bay. I did also have a fourth ‘draggy’ experience nearby in the Tamar but i’m happy to admit that even at the time I thought it to be inadequate in weight.

Having grown up as a racing sailor and with skippers who were obsessed by weight aboard their boats – thus in my mind often sailing with anchors too light for their boats I became jaundiced against lightweight when it comes to anchors and rodes. Some sharp lessons with my own boats, where I felt that what I was carrying was adequate taught me to go up at least a size with the Bruce and Delta anchors I was using in those days – and ultimately to try out the more modern anchor types. In fact I went in two directions at once as I bought both Rocna and Manson anchors (modern at the time) but I also went deeply ‘retro’ with my old style Admiralty pattern anchors ; had I been able to source one I would have bought a Paul Luke anchor as a storm hook for my Frances 26 but they were rare in England and I believe they aren’t even made now.

Today I find that my Admiralty pattern anchor has stood the test of time and 2 boats later it’s still aboard the Pathfinder and really does seem to be ‘bombproof’ the other anchor that I kept after the sale of my Liberty is ‘Rocky’ (Rocna) which is over-spec for the boat and which I will replace with something different as and when I see what I want and have the money available. I will continue with my practice of carrying 2 anchors because, as I say, I do often use the second hook as a haul-off anchor or for a Bahamian moor but I honestly don’t see the need to go full Klang.

The other thing which I am wary of (in relation to anchors and this whole piece) is the machine-gun approach of carrying multiple but not very effective anchors ; what I think of as ‘Klang’. This was another thing that I came across in conversation with another boater who routinely carried 4 anchors and still had anchoring problems : in my mind my question was why not carry less of them but maybe go for quality and weight instead.

Finally, for today’s effort, I just want to say that i’m both wary and cynical about many yachtsmen’s attitudes and knowledge when it comes to anchors and anchoring. Where once it was common practice to have a boat on a mooring and to anchor out while cruising most yachts now live in marinas and some don’t even come with an anchoring roller as standard. Many yachtsmen seem to be subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to their level of confidence vs their level of competence and most of them seem to have bought their ‘knowledge’ along with this month’s copy of some yachting magazine …….which mostly serves to pitch the latest gear as essential. Ok so i’m a deeply grumpy old fart who reads Maurice Griffiths and L. Francis Herreshoff but I have also tried most styles and types of anchors on anything from dayboats to Maxi yachts.

I guess that’s enough Klang for one day.