Spring Break - Part Seven
By Dave and Jaja

The wind was steady at 30 knots, and a sudden increase in driving snow made it difficult to see. The rocks behind us were very clear, however. Jaja was on the foredeck, cranking up the anchor with our Simpson Lawrence 555 manual windlass.

Chris was in the companionway. I said, "Chris. Go to the V-berth, open the anchor locker door, and keep the chain flowing in smoothly." One of the idiosyncrasies of DRIVER was that the anchor chain tended to "stack" inside the chain locker. In most conditions we used a three-foot-long, half-inch diameter, stainless-steel rod. By sticking it into the hawse pipe we "flicked" the chain over inside the locker. There was no time for using the rod now. We had Chris trained as Chain Man for dealing with this kind of emergency. Chris obeyed without question and bolted below to the V-berth.

I finally got the engine started as another whitewater gust slammed into us. There was a small indentation on the shoreline that DRIVER had drifted into. Rocks were even with our starboard beam. It looked like we should have been touching bottom but we weren't--fortunately it was deep right up to the rocks.

Jaja's frantic assault at the windlass was keeping us nosed into the wind, and I thought all was going to be well, but the violent gust had pushed our bow to starboard. I hesitated to use the engine. If I put it into gear immediately I was worried that I would drive us straight into the rocks. We were yawing slowly over, closer to the rocks. The wind was howling. Jaja couldn't see me hunched in the cockpit with my hand on the throttle, and with my eyes on the depth sounder.

"Dave! Put us in gear!!!"

I had to wait two seconds longer for the momentum of the bow to stop going to starboard. The moment it began to swing into the eye of the wind again, due to Jaja's cranking in of the chain, I fire-walled the engine to 3000 rpm's. DRIVER shot forward. Holly was watching from the dodger.

"Holly, get our coats and our gloves." I was wearing a sweater and sweat pants and socks. My head was freezing. I could imagine how cold Jaja must be on the exposed foredeck. I threw on my jacket and gloves, slowed the engine down to 1,500, then raced onto the foredeck to spell Jaja at the windlass.

I yelled over the wind. "Holly has your coat and gloves!" Jaja ran back, then with the tiller between her knees she steered us forward while putting on her coat. I cranked up the final 60 feet of chain, got the anchor into the roller, then got on my knees and put my mouth over the hawse hole and yelled loudly to Chris, to let him know the anchor was fully retrieved.

We motored forward then dropped the anchor again. Another 50-knot gust slammed into us but with five-to-one scope the anchor caught and held us safely. Jaja came on the foredeck. She had put her boots on, but her exposed legs between the bottom of her rain coat and the tops of her boots were plastered with snow. The wind had gone down a notch.

Jaja sighed. "That was close."

I nodded. "I think we should dump the 35-pound Danforth for good measure." A half hour later, with DRIVER pulling firm against two anchors, we retreated below. The adults got a glass of wine and our clear-thinking kids got chocolate.

The remainder of the day ran its course without mishap.