Using your buckets

I have mentioned a few times that the anchorages in the Madeira Islands are "rolly". By this I mean the swell, or more simply the waves, cause the boat to roll side to side and pitch forward and aft.

The pitching is usually not as uncomfortable as rolling, because the boat is three times as long as it is wide, the same wave travelling the width of the boat will be three times as abrupt. Still, because we sleep at the back of the boat a largish swell from directly aft can give us a fairly sleepless night.

However, it is the waves travelling across the width of the boat that give us the most discomfort. Of course, if we were millionaires we could stay in marinas all the time, but that not being the case, we decided to try to do something.

Once anchored we hung a large twenty litre bucket off the end of the boom and let the boom out as far as it would go, with the top of the bucket level with the water so as it would fill. We put a second bucket out on the other side at the end of the spinaker pole. The idea is, when the boat rolled, one of the buckets would be lifted, as it would be full of seawater it would dampen the effect of the roll. The rope on the other bucket would simply go slack, so there is no see-saw effect. When the boat rolled back the buckets simply reversed roles.

It is hard to know whether it improves things, but at least we feel we are fighting back, and it does create some bemused questions from our neighbours in the anchorage.