Anchored in Las Hadas, Catamaran encroachment - anchoring ability? - Manzanillo, mexico - 2014

End of December 2014 - Las Hadas, Manzanillo, Mexico

I rowed over (in our Achilles LSI-310E dinghy) to the cat and started to push it sideways. 

  With two hulls it was hard or at least it was plain hard no matter the two hulls. 
This catamaran s\v Grainedo evidently anchored too close or did not let out enough scope or both. We did not see it anchor in the anchorage and the next day they dingy'd by and said “hi”, two teenage boys and a husband and wife. We did not get any names, they are French. They are heading for the Panama Canal. They were off to town for groceries. Later the wind completely died in the anchorage and the catamaran drifted up on its chain. It was coming dangerously close to our boat. Debbie grabbed a boat hook and we lowered our dinghy.

Then I tried the bows, each one. 

This is the boat where the fellow came from who helped move the Cat.

I was making some slow progress when a dinghy from s/v Shema came by with one of the four guys from the boat in it. He helped tow the Cat away.

I then tried to set a stern anchor on the cat using our small Fortress. I tied a line to the shackle and lowered it into the water about 20’ deep or so. Then towed it with the dinghy to set it. No go there. 

I tried it three times and decided it was chain time. I added 15’ of 5\16 chain that we had on board. We took it off the Lewmar 8 plait anchor rode we are now using and spliced 10’ of 3\8 chain to the Lewmar 8 plait to fit our gypsy. The Fortress 4lb #7 anchor set right off. I then tied it off to the cat to hold it in place. When I lowered the anchor and 15' of chain into the water it reminded me of why we want smaller rode. The first 5' of chain went down ok but the weight of it started pulling the rest through my hands fast, I did not have much control. We want to get the next size down in chain size and about 12' for this anchor.

  over to the s\v Offshore Day (an O’day 27’ I think) and let them (two guys) know that we stern anchored the Cat so be aware of it. He said his buddy was surfing a great spot here in Manzanillo and found a place to stay for about $10.00 USD a night in a hammock so he did not need to take the 3 different bus rides back to the boat. He said there we lots of tubes to be had.

Then Debbie and I rowed over to the beach for a walk.  From the walk, we could see the fellow from the Cat return to the boat, saw our note we left and hauled our stern anchor.  On our way back, we ran into him so explained what happened and retrieved our anchor.  After he and his family returned, they re-anchored a little farther out in the anchorage.