TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

On the trip across we begin to get the feel for Ron MacInnes, and his depth of experience, and are not at all suprised to hear a simple statement “There are two ways of sailing, the RYA way and the Ron MacInnes way, and guess which one I am going to teach you”..

Skanda Island is a nice little spot with just a Pub and two holiday cottages on it in a bay on the north side of the island.. A pub where everybody HAS to come by boat is a new one for me.

Coming into the anchorage Ron gives us his way of ensuring that you get the best spot in a bay with plenty of room to swing.

If you are the first boat into an anchorage and drop your hook then everybody else who comes in will say “Well that must be the best spot over there” and drop close to you.

So drop your hook well away from where you want to be and wait until you have two or three other boats around you. Then raise your anchor and go where you actually wanted to be.

If any late comers arrive they always go to where there are a group of boats and ignore “that fool who has decided to go over there”.

Result, a nice quite spot and no need to worry about not having to reduce that amount of chain you put out to limit the amount you swing.

Oh yes and while we are at it I always user 25 metres of chain + the maximum expected water height. Forget this minimum 4 times max expected depth, that is the MINIMUM. My way is more than that in under eight metres and if you have to anchor in more than eight metres up here then you better put it all out anyway…

And remember we don’t have a windlass so if you anchor in deep water that means a lot of chain and anchor to lift once it clears to bottom…

Still we finally get our anchor set where he wanted it to be, and its time to pump up the dinghy ready for a run ashore.

A meal in the pub and its back to the dinghy as the sun sets over the tip of Kintyre