Swinging Room

I believe I have mentioned previously that my idea of a good night on board involves a lot of scope on the anchor rode and plenty of swinging room. It turns out that “lots” and “plenty” are variables with a wide range of possible values depending on the person assigning them. Most of the cruising literature talks blithely of scopes of 7:1 or 10:1 (the “1” in the ratio representing the depth at which that anchor is being set; I’ll leave it to others to explain the geometry and physics behind the “more is better” philosophy), assuming what I can only imagine are Caribbean-like conditions of moderate tides, steady winds, 15 foot depths, and plenty of space. Here in the Pacific Northwest, 3:1 may be about the norm, and 4:1 luxurious. The water is deep, tidal range is great, anchorages are few and boats are many. In a lot of places, you wouldn’t have sufficient swinging room on 10:1 even if you were by yourself (and happened to have 600 feet of rode bent on).

I bring this up again because of a number of debates I uncovered while researching anchoring etiquette. I was looking into it because of an ambiguity in the otherwise fairly standard code of “first come, first served, dragging party resets.” The ambiguity has to do with unoccupied moorings. They aren’t often mentioned in the mix, but they are increasingly a prominent feature in popular anchorages, and there seems to be little consensus on how to deal with them. Everyone agrees, in the main, that they should generally be kept clear of, as moored boats will swing differently than anchored boats, and that it’s a bad idea to tie up to one yourself, as the owner may return at midnight, and anyway you don’t know the quality of the anchor.

My question arose when we anchored in Mark Bay, near Nanaimo, which can be crowded, and where we ended up on the edge of the anchorage a bit close to someone’s pieced-together permanent mooring. There are a number of these through the bay, and increasingly through many of the popular anchorages in the Gulf Islands; Telegraph Harbour is littered with them, and Silva Bay is absolutely choked. We re-anchored a little further away, but not knowing what size boat was typically tied to the thing, it was hard to judge an adequate distance.

So I was wondering what my obligations were and started searching a bit, and uncovered a raging debate that touches the topic. Apparently I am supposed to be boycotting Nanaimo entirely because they are exploring a permitting process for Mark Bay (this is separate from the anti-development Nanaimo boycott; that seems like a lot of boycotts for a town that size), similar to the False Creek system; people see it as an affront to freedom and our anchoring liberties, and in some sense at least I am with them on that; on the other hand, the thrust of the argument suggests that moorings be respected as the “first boat” and that if the original tenant returned, I should re-anchor. It’s easy to see how that custom turns out like Silva Bay, where you simply don’t anchor. The “Boycott Nanaimo” crowd sees this as a secondary concern to keeping government out of the anchoring process; their opponents think the derelicts, out-of-code permanent moorings, and floating homes are impactful enough to be worthy of regulation.

It’s a worthy debate, and not just a Pacific Northwestern question, of course, but in the midst of all the finger-pointing and recriminations I found very little practical advice in how to honorably approach anchoring in crowded mooring fields. Some discussion amongst British cruisers suggests giving them little respect, even to the extent that one might pick up an unoccupied mooring (quite a no-no here in the States); amongst East Coast cruisers, where in many municipalities private moorings are costly and hard to come by, they seem to be treated almost as reverently as a home ashore. Beth Leonard, in “The Cruiser’s Handbook,” suggests you avoid anchoring near them, but if you must, you needn’t leave if the owner returns, implicitly suggesting that despite the ball, the second boat is always the second boat. That seems, at least, to be common sense to me… without an actual boat there, no one anchoring anywhere nearby has an opportunity to judge size and swing, and it seems unfair to hold them to any particular degree of keeping clear without that information.

So that’s my perspective on the matter at the moment, but I would love to hear other opinions… not so much on the broader question of anchoring rights and use, but rather on the etiquette and protocol of anchoring near moorings in typically crowded areas.