"Do you sail all the time, or anchor at night?"

We are normally doing ocean passages, so we have little choice in the matter. We have to sail. We are currently southeast of Madagascar, in 4.5km of water. If we were to anchor here, we would need 22.5 km of anchor cable, which would take up about 2500 cubic metres of stowage space. This is obviously not feasible, and even if we could carry that much cable, once the anchor was down, the weight of the cable would either a.) Snap the cable or b.) Sink the ship bow first. And can you imagine pulling it back up?

For those interested in details, Duyfken has two admiralty anchors. Before we can anchor, a cable must be bent (tied) to one of these, and it is lowered into the water on an old bit of rope called, "The Letting- go Line". We then flake (lay) out enough cable ahead of the windlass to allow the anchor to reach the bottom, and the rest of the cable is flaked out on the main deck.

When we find a good spot to anchor, the ship is turned into the wind and the anchor is let go. Once it is on the bottom, we pay out a length of cable equal to about five times the depth of water, then belay the cable and see if the anchor holds. The cable forms a sort of spring, so the anchor is not pulled out by the ship bobbing up and down. It also means that the pull on the anchor is along the bottom, rather than up and down, so it has a better chance of holding.

Weighing (pulling up) anchor is the bit we all like the best. Duyfken has a very simple anchor windlass, which consists of a horizontal wooden drum with holes around it, and a pawl (ratchet) in the middle. To weigh anchor, we all sit in a line and pull on the anchor cable. This pulls the ship towards the anchor until the cable is "up and down" (the ship is over the anchor), then we have to try and pull the anchor up to the ship. This is the hard bit, and we often have to use handspikes (wooden bars) as levers in the holes to turn the drum. Once the anchor is up, it's a simple matter of lifting it back into the beakhead and lashing it in place. Any volunteers?