There is a moment, on a hot August evening in a popular Riviera bay, when you realise that the single anchor and the generous swinging circle you grew up with are about to make you very unpopular. Everyone is packed in, the boats are swinging on short scope to fit, and your own boat, on a normal 5:1 scope, is carving an arc that sweeps across three neighbours. The Mediterranean rewards a different technique, and on the Cote d'Azur in season it is sometimes the only way to anchor at all.
The answer is a second anchor, deployed deliberately to cut your swing. Here is how to do it without making a tangle of your foredeck or your neighbour's night.
Why one anchor stops working
A boat lying to one anchor weathercocks to the wind and the tide and swings through a wide circle. The radius of that circle is roughly your scope plus the boat length, so on a 5:1 scope in 6 metres of water you are swinging on something like 30 metres of rode plus the hull. That is fine with space around you and disastrous when boats are 15 metres apart.
In the virtually tideless Mediterranean the wind is usually the only thing turning you, which is what makes a second anchor practical. With no strong tidal stream reversing every six hours, you can set two anchors in a fixed relationship and trust them to hold the boat in a much smaller footprint. On a tidal coast like Brittany the same techniques exist but behave differently as the stream turns, which is one reason anchoring in Brittany deserves its own treatment.
A Bahamian moor shrinks the circle to a point
The classic two-anchor solution for tight spots is the Bahamian moor. You lay two anchors off the bow in opposite directions, then take both rodes to the bow so the boat sits between them. The result is that the boat pivots around almost a single point rather than swinging on a long arc, which is exactly what you want when the wind is going to box the compass overnight.
The method, done single-handed or short-handed:
- Motor up to where you want the first anchor and drop it, then fall back, paying out roughly twice the scope you will finally need.
- Drop the second anchor astern of where you now lie.
- Haul back on the first rode while paying out the second, until you sit midway between the two with both leading from the bow, each on a sensible scope.
- Take both rodes to the bow and adjust so the loads are even.
Now the wind can swing through 360 degrees and your boat barely moves off its spot. The catch is that the two rodes can wrap around each other as the boat turns, which over several days produces a frustrating twist. For a night or two it is not a problem.
The fork moor: holding into wind and swell
The Bahamian moor minimises the circle but does not hold the bow into anything in particular. When there is a known wind or swell direction and you want the bow held to it, a fork moor is better. You lay two anchors off the bow with an angle of roughly 60 to 90 degrees between them, both ahead, so the loads share between them and the boat lies steady to the combined pull. This is the moor I use when a bay is open to a slight swell and I want the bow to stay pointed at it through the night.
The angle matters. Too narrow and one anchor does most of the work; too wide and the geometry actually increases the load on each. Somewhere around 60 degrees is the sweet spot for sharing the load while keeping the swing tight.
The line ashore: the Mediterranean classic
In the steep-sided calanques and the rocky Riviera coves, where the bottom drops away fast and the bay is narrow, the local solution is often a single anchor off the bow with a long line taken ashore from the stern, tied to a rock, a tree or a ring. This stops the boat swinging altogether and lets a dozen boats line up along a cove that would hold three on swinging moorings.
It is a skill worth practising. You anchor as normal, then run a long warp from the stern to the shore, usually by dinghy, and snub up so the anchor and the shore line share the load. The points to get right are a long enough line to allow for the small Mediterranean tide and any surge, and a secure attachment ashore that you can release from the boat if the wind shifts and you need to leave in a hurry.
The thing you must not anchor in
Before you drop anything on the Cote d'Azur, look at what is under you. Much of this coast is carpeted in posidonia, the protected seagrass, and anchoring in it is now banned in large zones with real fines. A second anchor in a meadow of posidonia is twice the damage and twice the risk of a penalty. So the technique starts with the seabed: find sand, not the green meadow. The detail of where you can and cannot drop is set out in the posidonia anchoring ban in France, and it now shapes where two-anchor work is even legal.
To read the seabed before you commit, the chart is your first witness, with the S for sand and the warnings of weed; getting fluent with the French chart symbols lets you pick the sandy patch off the chart before you confirm it by eye through clear Mediterranean water.
Etiquette in a packed bay
The unwritten rule is that you adopt the same swinging behaviour as the boats around you. If everyone is on a single anchor swinging freely, a Bahamian moor that holds you rigid while they swing is a recipe for contact, because their arcs will sweep into your fixed position. If everyone is moored bow-and-stern or with lines ashore, you do the same. The Bahamian moor in particular only works well when neighbours are also restricting their swing.
So before you set up, watch how the bay is lying. Match it. And if you arrive first and set a two-anchor moor, expect that later arrivals on single anchors may swing into your space, which is an argument for taking a spot at the edge rather than the middle.
Getting the anchors back up
The part nobody warns you about is recovery, because two anchors are markedly harder to lift than one, especially short-handed and especially if the rodes have twisted overnight. With a Bahamian moor I recover the downwind anchor first, motoring up to it gently so the load comes off, then deal with the second. If the two chains have wound around each other, I take it slowly and let the boat unwind itself rather than hauling against the twist, which only jams it harder. A fork moor is easier, since both anchors lead ahead and there is little to tangle.
With a line ashore I cast off the shore end first, recover the warp into the dinghy or back to the boat, and only then weigh the bow anchor, so the boat is not pinned between the two while I work. Plan the recovery before you set up, because a tight bay at dawn with a building breeze is not where you want to discover that your two rodes have made a braid you cannot undo.
Scope and depth in the Med
One last practical point. With a second anchor pinning your swing you can often run a slightly shorter scope than the 5:1 you would use on a single hook in open water, because the geometry shares and steadies the load. Even so, do not skimp below about 3:1 on all chain, and remember that the small Mediterranean range, perhaps a few tens of centimetres rather than the metres you get in Brittany, still moves enough that a line ashore needs slack to allow for it and any overnight surge. Read the depth carefully and allow for the bit of tide there is, then set both anchors with the engine astern to be sure they have bitten before you trust them for the night.
My short-handed routine
For a busy Riviera night I keep it simple. I find sand, confirm it by eye, and check the chart for weed and depth. If the bay is open to a swell I lay a fork moor into it. If the wind is going to swing and the bay is just crowded, I lay a Bahamian moor to pin my circle. In a narrow cove with good rocks ashore I anchor and run a stern line to the beach. In every case I dive the anchor if the water is clear, because a set you have seen is worth ten you have only felt. Two anchors well laid turn an impossible August bay into a comfortable berth, and they keep you on speaking terms with the boats packed in beside you.
