Over lunch, a very experienced boater friend was recounting an occasion when he was trying to get his boat backed into a slip. With the wind on his beam, his bow would blow off, over and over before he was finally able to get his boat backed in between the pilings.

Once our friend had his boat secured in the slip, an old-timer approached him and offered this suggestion: Next time, just as you start to back down, drop your anchor with a short-enough rode so that the anchor can drag along the bottom. That dragging anchor will allow the bow to resist blowing off, yet still, allow you to be able to back your boat.

In essence, he described the technique of “drudging”,  an age-old method of controlling a boat’s speed or direction by intentionally letting the anchor drag-the one time that “dragging” is not only acceptable but encouraged.

Drudging is distinct from kedging in that with drudging, once the length of the rode is adjusted, it’s the anchor that moves. Whereas with kedging, once the anchor is set it doesn’t move, it is the rode that is adjusted.

We, too, have had an opportunity in which drudging would have been of considerable benefit… if we had only thought to use it.

Unlike our friend who was trying to back into a slip, we were attempting to back out of one. With the wind on our stern, and with limited room to maneuver, our attempts to turn, once clear of the pilings, were repeatedly stymied. When we finally had no choice but to commit ourselves, we were able to kinda align our boat and make it down the fairway, but only after taking a large thumb cleat off a piling.

In retrospect, had we backed out, dropped our main bower and sat still for a few moments, our bow would have stayed mostly in place, and our stern, instead, would have been the end that had blown around, aligning our boat to the middle of and in-line with the fairway. Then with some way on, while recovering our anchor, we would have been able to maintain steerage and control of the boat as we motored out… so obvious in hindsight!

Drudging may involve some effort, but it may also entail less time and anxiety, possibly fewer scrapes and gouges than alternative maneuvers. Even for those boats with thrusters or twin engines, drudging is a good technique to file away in your mind, possibly even practice, for there may come an opportunity when it will be opportune to bring this technique into play, either to assist the thruster or the engines or as a substitute.

Rudy & Jill Sechez, authors of "Anchoring: A Ground Tackler's Apprentice," (available in both print and digital editions) first began cruising in 1997 aboard a 36-foot wood, cutter-rigged sailboat that they built in a small backyard.

They currently live and cruise aboard a 34-foot sail-assisted wood trawler, which they designed, then built under the trees out in the woods. Relevant to this book, they have seen their boats successfully through seven hurricanes, anchoring through five of them, in addition to numerous tropical storms and countless gales. They cruise primarily the east coasts of the U.S., Gulf of Mexico and the Bahamas, with a trip to Bermuda along the way.