We had thought that we had seen it all but apparently there are always new ways to do things (or in this case ... Not do things). We were anchored very close to another Beneteau 50 in about 4 meters of water off this point and the wind was blowing around 12-15 knots -- fairly windy. I was worried we were too close to the other Bene 50 when this 30 foot boat (brand new, probably charter) powers between us, turns around, drops the anchor in-between our two boats and starts to back up into the wind. The most basic concept about anchoring is that your boat always faces upwind (assuming your anchor is on the bow) and no amount of backing up can counteract the force of the wind.
At one point, as we were enjoying cocktail hour I asked "do you think they see the big white boat here?" meaning the one we are sitting on. They were about 10 feet away at the time. We surreptitiously got a fender at the ready and watched them catch the wind, spin around, smack into the side of the other Bene 50, pull themselves forward while jabbing the other boat with boathooks, drag their boat along the other boat's anchor chain and finally goose their motor so they didn't hit us.
Marina, always the good samaritan, hailed over whether they needed help. they yelled back they just had technical difficulties (Ross said "yeah, like not knowing anything about anchoring") and they moved a couple of boat lengths away and actually got their anchor to hold. The next tense moment for us came when the 4 people on board that boat piled into the smallest dinghy we've ever seen with a 2hp engine and headed into town at dusk. The boat was nearly submerged. You know you're overloaded when 6 inch waves obscure their boat from view. Come to think of it I didn't see any activity on their boat this morning. Hope they made it back.
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