GALE FORCE KATABATIC WINDS AND AN UPSIDE DOWN DUCK .

We recently had a slight altercation with Mother Nature while anchored off Iate Clube Angra dos Reis . We had experienced a similar situation before at the Hout Bay Marina in South Africa when gale force katabatic winds often referred to as black South Easter's came hurtling down the mountains and tried their level best to rip the mooring cleats off the decks of the boats that were berthed in the marina . Although in Hout Bay the winds were stronger , the difference between these two occasions was that we were securely attached to a pitching walk-on mooring whereas on this occasion we were anchored to a very suspect seabed .

A couple of months earlier while visiting the sailmaker in Bracuhy , a local yacht arrived with its entire rig lashed to its deck . The mast had broken about 500mm off the deck and l would presume the culprit for bringing the rig down was probably a suspect forestay . This all took place while the boat was attached to its mooring buoy during one of these episodes . The sailmaker had warned us that this anchorage was prone to very powerful katabatic winds due to the mountains that surround the bay and to make matters worse , he claimed that the holding referring to the bottom was very poor .

After enjoying the facilities at the club during the day and just about to do my checks before climbing into bed our windgenerator suddenly came to life for about 10 seconds . Just to explain , our windgen has two purposes in life . The first is to charge our ships batteries and the second is to give me some idea of what the wind is doing while l am down below i.e. the sound it emits is my wind strength indicator . A few minutes later it came to life again also for a few short seconds and that was sufficient warning to me that something evil was brewing . I shot out onto the foredeck and although we had a 6 : 1 ratio on our anchor rode l let out more rode to give us a 10 : 1 ratio , the main reason being is that when we arrived there was a south westerly blowing and l had powerset our anchor in the opposite direction to where the wind was now coming from . I had anchored well away from the rest of the club's fleet as they were all attached to mooring buoys and we needed swinging room . I sat back and waited to see what Mother Nature had up her sleeve .

Well she did not disappoint and a few minutes later all hell broke loose . Our tranquil evening was transformed into riding out a gale with the wind already gusting into the upper thirties . Our boat was now tacking back and forth on our extended anchor rode which is not good as when she behaves in this way the loading on our ground tackle is increased quite dramatically .

Just to diverse , an age old problem with boats at anchor in high winds is that they want to turn beam-on to the wind and they tend to sheer back and forth as the increasing tension in the anchor rode hauls the bow across to the opposite tack and repeats this process with the boat heeling first one way and then the other . Not pleasant especially when you know that the seabed is suspect and this action could lead to your anchor dragging or even worse breaking out completely . 

Knowing this l took bearings off lights ashore and was keeping a close eye on proceedings . Urs who had been asleep popped her head out and l quote " Jeez babe , but the wind is howling hey " end quote . I assured her that everything was under control and that she should go back to bed and two seconds later she disappeared .

An hour later we were getting gusts peaking at 50 knots and at one point our windgen was pumping 36amps in our battery bank . Our dinghy was still attached to our stern and although it was dark , l could see at times it was showing signs of wanting to become airborne . Sheets of spray were sweeping across the deck and then l noticed from our bearings that we were slowly but surely dragging onto what was now a lee shore .

All of a sudden our situation had changed and a number of options immediately came to mind . We could attempt to up anchor and try reset the beast or we could up anchor and head off into the dark and seek a quieter anchorage somewhere else . But both those options would involve getting Urs out from under our warm duvet in the forepeak and her role when raising anchor is to drive the boat and in those conditions in the dark trying to keep the boat head to wind would be difficult in anyone's book .

So my plan was to start the engine and motor into the wind to stem the dragging by taking the load off the anchor . It worked perfectly and the bonus was with our barn door of a rudder l was able to drive the stern from side to side by turning the wheel from port to starboard and in the process countering the sheering of the boat . We were perfectly under control and that wonderful feeling of accomplishment swept over me . It is the first time in many years of sailing that l have helmed for four hours , motoring at 1500rpm and not gone anywhere but l was now quite enjoying this new found technique .

All of a sudden a huge gust picked up our tender ( 40kgs ) , flicked it up in the air and dumped it upside down back in the water with our outboard now totally submerged . Unfortunately l was too busy taking care of the mothership to be able to attempt righting it in those conditions and anyway , whether it be one hour or five hours underwater the same work would need to be undertaken to restore its dignity .  

By daybreak the wind had moderated but was still gusting in the upper thirties but now l could cut the engine as the anchor was holding again . After wrestling with the duck l now had it floating the right way up with its drowned engine still attached to its transom . Then l saw the damage caused by these powerful gusts . Three yachts lay on their beam ends washed up on the beach and one powerboat had sunk on its mooring . A string of thatched umbrellas that looked is if they had been there for years now lay uprooted on the beach and most of the boats had suffered damage with missing awnings and those that still had their covers attached were mainly ripped . Our boat was covered in a layer of salt from the spray that was whipped up by these incredible gusts and once l could see them in the early light , they reminded me of miniature dust devils in the Karoo .

Later on in the morning once the wind had settled l rowed ashore with a very sick outboard and spent a number of hours sorting out the flooding and getting the engine to run again . Chatting to the yacht clubs staff , they confirmed that the previous night's winds were the strongest they had experienced in a longtime and they must have phoned every owner to inform them of what had transpired the previous evening a there was a flood of activity all day on the boats moored at the club .

I was really looking forward to getting an early night to catch up on some much needed sleep and lo and behold we had a repeat of the previous night's katabatic winds , albeit this time around the winds peaked at 35 knots . Still as any good skipper will tell you , there is no way that you can sleep until its over . The difference with the second night is that l had a tried and tested method to deal with a dragging anchor should the need arise and that is the positive aspect of heavy weather conditions in that whether at sea or at anchor you get the opportunity to test your methods and perfect your technique to give you that quiet confidence that whatever Mother Nature throws at you , you will deal with it and come out tops .

After two nights of no sleep , the next morning we went ashore , paid our account , thanked everyone for their wonderful hospitality and headed out for a quieter anchorage . That night we anchored in the lee of Ilha da Gipio and slept like babies .