Whenever I anchor a race support boat, I tie a float such as a fender or an unused pfd to the bitter end of the anchor line (instead of tying the line to the boat or leaving it completely free). That way, should I need to break station in an emergency, all I have to do is cast off the anchor line. I can come back to the float and retrieve the anchor later. The few minutes this saves may be important in a safety situation, especially in winter sailing.

This past weekend, Joleen and I were running a local race when a puff capsized one of the boats near the weather mark. We saw they were having difficulty righting, so we cast off the anchor, motored up, offered assistance, took crew aboard, righted the boat, made sure everybody was ok, motored back to our anchor, tied up, and took finishes.

Now, the wind picked up in that race, and it turned out to be a short one (only about 16 minutes). The entire round trip for us was about 8-9. If we'd had to weigh and re-set the anchor, we wouldn't have made it. We'd have had to abandon instead. This little trick just paid off for us.

Regards,
Eric