This may have happened to you, or you may have seen it happen to others: It’s 0200 in a crowded anchorage. Portlights on a few boats emit beams of light across the flat water, but all the others are dark. Then the wind begins to pick up, slowly at first and then with more force. Only those who are still awake know the weather is changing.

A few boats ride out the increasing wind without difficulty as their bows swing around obediently to face the new wind direction. Others sail back and forth on their rodes. At the end of each tack some boats pause for a moment; a few may be nearly broadside to the wind. Inevitably, the back-and-forth motion pulls out some of the anchors that had been set so carefully by their owners the previous afternoon. Even your boat may be tacking and tugging at its anchor rode. That’s unfortunate; in most cases a modern cruising boat doesn’t have to behave this way. And it wouldn’t if it had a proper riding sail.

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