storms in Brisbane - anchor put to Supreme test.

This time of year generally gets some decent afternoon storms in Brisbane and we have been in a few in the last month Or two.

We have weathered a few 50 knotters as measured by weather gauges on nearby beacons but then a couple of days ago we had one that was clocked at 84 knots at the airport, strong enough to blow shipping containers around at the port and then onto us.

Of the dozen or so vessels in the bay we were in we appeared to be the only one that stayed in place and apart from some window leaks which we are addressing now and some broken electrical ties holding on some shade cloth there was no damage done to us

Most others had the usual selection of undersized ploughs but of interest to us , as he came very close to collecting us, was a 55ft power cat which had a SARCA anchor.
He and I were both surprised it had dragged but it did look to be fairly small, approx 80lb at a guess.

Confidence in our anchoring gear is now complete.
We had out 50 metres of 13mm chain and 150lb Manson Supreme on a 60 ft near 70 tonne twin decker vessel.

Oh Oh. Surely your not saying you have found the perfect anchor.

GEEZ! Maybe that could be my answer. My 80# Supreme (anything but supreme) might be too small for my 40" Silverton aftcabin which has about 16 tons (30,000#s)

Andy G said:

Oh Oh. Surely your not saying you have found the perfect anchor.

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Did you really need to throw that glove down? Here we go.

mbevins said:

Did you really need to throw that glove down? Here we go.

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You have me laughing :lol:

This is right up there with "could you tell me when/why you stopped beating your wife?"

Andy G said:

Oh Oh. Surely your not saying you have found the perfect anchor.

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I am saying I have found the best anchor I have ever used in over 40 years of boating.

This is the only one that has allowed me to soundly sleep at night in spots that I could never even consider in other vessels with other anchors.

With 50m of chain does one really need an anchor shackled to the end?

Moby Nick said:

With 50m of chain does one really need an anchor shackled to the end?

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On a boat not much bigger than our tender, possibly not.

Where were you anchored Simi. I'm intrigued. That was some blow. The say the wind peaked at cat 2 cyclone, (hurricane for the US types), strength about 157kph, (100mph) and yes, it blew containers at the port around as if made of polystyrene. It must have been quite 'interesting' to say the least to be anchored out in it. The problem with that Powercat is their windage and tendency to swing back and forth in a blow. They need an extra heavy ground tackle to counter that.

^^Anchored in the SW corner of Horseshoe bay and back out in 20 ft of water.
Interesting to say the least.
Zero vis and boat healing as we veered to the gusts, enough so that bottles crashed to the floor but thankfully did not smash.
Horizontal rain coming in around sliding doors and forced through sliding windows.
Sea surface blasted to foam and both sounders lost bottom due to disturbed surface. One of them has a shreiking alarm going off.
Dedicated plotter and tablet with GPS both lost signals so we had no idea of our position. Tablet has anchor watch app enabled, as signal is lost its alarm starts shreiking as well adding to the "excitement".
Not the sort of fun we want to repeat anytime soon.