In reply to Bobling:
Hi, folks - now up and running and able to give a bit more detail on the anchoring side of things.
In the bay below the Moonraker stance It is sandy about 50 metres out, so I first dropped a plough anchor there, and dug it in by reversing and progressively increasing engine revs. You know when you have the anchor in, as two ‘transit’ sight marks on your beam stop moving relative to each other, once it has buried itself in the sand.
There are rocks nearer the crag and anchor chain can wrap around these, so I left a tripping line and buoy at the anchor end, thus giving you the choice of two ends of chain to pull on if things become tangled (though we didn’t have to resort to this).
However, we avoided grief in this area by backing up to the rockface, and sending Nick out on two boat’s ropes (old climbing ropes, of course) with a rack of old-style rigid friends. Whist hanging from one arm, he got a placement near sea level and attached an old crab and running rope back to the boat. Nick then traversed 15 metres to the right and repeated the operation, leaving Erin with a good long taught anchor chain and two friend placements - something I’ve never seen on Cloggy, or even Tremadog, for that matter.
Anyhow, with that set-up in place, Sandy (a recent yacht owner himself, but born in Fort William, and with a few decades of ice climbing [and adrenalin experience] behind him), was able to work the boat back and forth on its three good points of contact, depending on the sea state and climber’s needs. The friends were considered as expendable, and at any time Sandy could have aborted, putted in the back ropes, pulled out to sea and retrieved the anchor, and beat it to the shelter of Brixham harbour.
The day was clear, but the inland waters forecast had the wind increasing during the day, so I put several contingency plans in place, should Sandy have to abort the anchorage. On viewing the boat from the top of the climb, the sway looked alarming. Before abseiling, I said to Nick and Dave that I’d give a long blast on the ship’s horn if it was ok for them to come down, or two short ones to say ‘stay on top, retrieve your gear and help Emma up from her filming ledge, and we’ll meet you in Brixham. Fortunately arrival at the boat wasn’t so bad, due to Sandy’s deft use of a boat hook, so all three of us managed the abseil.
It was too lumpy to pick up Emma as the sea was now quite spirited, but Sandy and I managed to drop Nick and Dave on the other side of the headland, with me circling in Erin, and him manning the dinghy. From their welcome return to dry land, they soon recovered their balance and were able to get back over to Emma and retrieve all gear. Sandy and I then had a cracking good sail back to the Exe Estuary, where Erin lives.
All in all, a Grand Day Out.