How to find good passage anchorages

It’s an age-old dilemma – you’re beating west in a rapidly faltering tide, and the approaching headland is looking no more appealing.

What you need is a place to wait out the foul tide and get some rest.

While a town quay or marina (and the accompanying pubs) might be a tempting diversion, heading into port could add a number of miles to the trip and extend it by up to a day – and that’s where passage anchorages come in.

Many of these will have been used over the centuries by working sailing vessels awaiting a fair wind or favourable tide.

While they won’t have the same shelter as your favourite hurricane hole, or the facilities of a town quay, in the right conditions they can let you catch up on sleep, wait for a tide and continue your journey refreshed and with minimal diversion.

But how do you spot them? The good news is that most major headlands will have a nearby passage anchorage – or somewhere that vessels will have sheltered in the past.

Some of these might have been filled with moorings, marinas or development, but there’s a good chance that most still exist, whether or not they’re well known and used.

Sources for passage anchorages

Most pilot books offer scant advice on passage anchorages, preferring instead to dwell on places where you can spend a secure night.

However, there is information out there: books like Ken Endean’s Channel Havens and Peter Cumberlidge’s Secret Anchorages of Brittany are invaluable, as are other books which detail ‘off the beaten track’ places.

Old pilot books are another good resource: the one pictured above is South England Pilot, published by Imray in the early 1970s.

It includes regular mention of anchorages from fishermen’s haunts to passage anchorages – the section pictured cites the area west of Start Point – but
you can use its suggestions as options, assuming the wind is in a favourable direction and that you use an up-to-date chart to verify the information.

Finding a good passage anchorage

With practice you should be able to identify good passage anchorages from the chart

Wind direction: In the words of the late pilotage guru Peter Cumberlidge, ‘For good shelter most headlands need wind directions slightly better than perpendicular to the trend of their weather shore.’

That means, in the case of Start Point, that anything from north-westerly to westerly is OK – but if there’s any south in the wind you’ll start to get some swell working around the point, and a diversion to Dartmouth might be on the cards.

Carefully check the forecast for your stay. As you’re likely to be staying a maximum of six hours, chances are everything should be ok – but, on the other hand, that’s a long time to roll your masts out in an untenable anchorage.

Don’t forget that night breezes and the interface between sea and land breezes can change what looks like a great anchorage into a dangerous one – so beware!

Steep cliffs can, in the right circumstances, lead to katabatic winds whistling down off the cliffs at night.

Rocks: Rocks aren’t necessarily to be feared. You can find that at low water, an anchorage among rocks can be as calm as the best millpond.

The key is to look for rocks with steep-to edges, with deep pools in their lee – and make sure you can escape from the pool if necessary at low water.

Halfway through the ebb is a good time to approach your anchorage as there’s still a useful rise of tide, but the shelter is bound to improve as the tide height drops.

Continues below…

Seabed: Common sense applies to finding a suitable bottom for your passage anchorage.

Avoiding kelp is a given – and sand is best.

Study the chart carefully.

Gently-shelving seabeds can scoop up and increase the swell: the ideal anchorage is one with a well-defined spot in shallow-ish water, nestling in the lee of a headland, with the wind and swell well masked by the breakwater effect of the land

Escape route: In any exposed anchorage, it’s worth plotting an escape route. In the example of St Catherine’s Bay in Jersey, the exit (into a strong cross-tide) would become even more fraught should the breeze start blowing onshore.

A carefully plotted series of waypoints will give you a safe escape route into the dark should you need it.

It’s also worth checking that the deep pool you’re currently in won’t become isolated and trap you at low water, or that there’s no room to swing should the tide rise.

11 top passage anchorages

Some prominent headlands offer passage anchorages under their lee in the right conditions.

Most of these will, you’ll notice, mean that they’re sheltered when you’re heading upwind and planning to beat around the headland.

Nothing quite beats dropping the hook and gaining a few hours’ respite from the upwind slog.

South Coast

Hurst

Want to get the best push west out of the Solent but also need as much west-going tide the other side?

Hurst Castle might seem a little exposed, but there’s a good anchorage just inside the swirling tides and protected by the shingle spit.

Jersey

Bouley Bay and St Catherine’s Bay

On passage south towards the delights of Saint-Malo and Baie de Saint-Brieuc from Alderney or Cherbourg, you’ll often struggle to get past Jersey in one tide.

However, St Helier is a long diversion once you factor in the extensive shoals off Jersey’s south-east corner, so there are some bays on the east coast which come in really useful.

One is Bouley Bay, which is a lovely spot (if a bit rolly).

A quieter alternative is St Catherine’s Bay, where moorings nestle behind an impressive breakwater.

Sound in and anchor clear of the moorings, and you are but a few minutes away from being able to resume your trip.

South East Coast

Dungeness

Sailing vessels bound down-channel often used Dungeness as a passage anchorage to await a fair tide.

Despite the bleak outlook, now accompanied by a nuclear power station, the sandy headland offers good protection from swell if not wind.

Scotland

East Tarbet Bay

A useful passage anchorage for vessels awaiting a fair tide round the Mull of Galloway.

The anchorage and surrounding farmland provides good shelter from south through to WNW.

Portland

Church Ope Cove

It can be a long slog into Weymouth if you’re heading round the Bill – and in the right weather Church Ope Cove is a good place to pass the time to get the tide right for the inshore passage.

It can be quite rolly, but as a place to drop the anchor in good weather it’s not far from the Bill. It’s sheltered from SW-NW.

Chesil Cove

One only to be used in suitable weather, Chesil Cove is a useful anchorage for boats waiting for slack water at the Bill heading east.

It can be swelly, but in an easterly will provide a good lee.

If you try getting ashore to the excellent Cove House Inn pub you may find that getting ashore dry-shod onto the steep shingle beach is a challenge!

France – Cap de la Hague

Anse de St Martin

Cap de la Hague has fearsome tides – and the chance to wait out a tide without diverting back to Cherbourg is a good one.

There’s a useful anchorage to the east of Cap de la Hague, in the Anse de St Martin: in a south-westerly it has excellent shelter and holding and you can watch the water roaring past a mile away.

Anse du Cap Levi

This is to the west of Cap de la Hague and offers a useful waiting anchorage in easterly winds when heading east.

West Country

Hallsands Bay

This is the classic passage anchorage, just below Start Point, which lets you wait for slack water in impressive surroundings.

The nearby ruined village of Hallsands provides a spooky backdrop.

Elender Cove

Just west of Prawle Point is Elender Cove, which make a great spot for a lunch or passage stop to wait for the tide to turn in settled conditions or with the wind in the north-east.

What all of these passage anchorages have in common is that they are sheltered from wind directions that mean you’ll often take refuge there before rounding if heading upwind, or after rounding a headland if coming downwind.

With good holding, shelter and a suitable forecast you’ll often find that they give you as good a rest as a town quay, with much less diversion from your planned passage.

Disclaimer: Do not use the above charts for navigation

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