I have sailed off the mooring a few times, always with experienced crew, pretty much a non-event if you are paying attention. Make sure the lines/stick are released upwind, steer down and sheet in. Don’t let the crew come back from the bow until you are making way - is safer as the sail will be solidly on one side of the boat. While it is an interesting skill, I cannot see myself doing that in an emergency - if the engine will not start, I am not leaving the mooring.
I would suggest all practice picking up the mooring under sail - you never know when you will need to do it and best to have a plan before hand. Each time I have done it, I have sailed to a emptyish part of the bay and headed into the wind a couple of times to gauge how fast/slow the boat would stop in the current conditions. Yesterday, I did that and then the wind doubled in strength after I was in the mooring field - so much for plans. That said, I got to the mooring with about 2 kts of speed on, which seemed about right. I wanted more then too little - did not want to fall short and be drifting, running back to the cockpit and trying to make way to avoid others. Do we all have Samson posts? They are a thing of beauty when sailing to the mooring.
We don’t have a windlass, so I pull the anchor by hand. Normally I pull the boat to the anchor all by hand, or have my wife motor us up as I pull in the rode/anchor. Between the15 kts of wind and the current we had last week, the boat was at an angle to the wind and I could not pull the boat to the anchor. The boat did not point into the wind when the sail was raised. And yes, as others have noted, the boat made way very quickly with the sail up (even double reefed). I pulled in the rode as fast as I physically could and piled everything on the deck - going down the hawser hole would have slowed everything down too much. I expected our motion to clean the chain some, but alas, it did not and there was caked mud on the chain that needed to be cleaned later. Even double reefed, we were still heeling a bit and I was worried about the rode and chain going overboard. We got it all stuffed down the hawser hole as soon as we cleared the anchorage area, pulling it out when on our mooring to clean everything up. 120 feet of chain and rode dragging in the water would have been very bad. While I am not sure I would practice pulling the anchor under sail, it is certainly worth thinking about how you would do it in an emergency.
I wonder if a windlass would have been a hinderance - I highly doubt it would have brought the rode/chain in fast enough to be of use.
I am also giving greater thought to how I would set the anchor under sail. That is a lesser worry for me - it there are two aboard, one steers the boat into the wind and when it stops, drop the anchor and let out chain/rode and as soon as the anchor grabs, drop the sail and then adjust your scope. By myself - very worrying some. Maybe keep sailing . . . .
Thoughts, people, thoughts.
lloyd herman
Rendezvous, 30U
Port Washington, NY