Anchoring is one of the most common operations performed by yachts around the world. Every season, vessels anchor safely in bays, harbours and remote cruising grounds without incident. For many crews, it becomes a routine part of daily operations.
Yet despite its familiarity, anchoring remains a genuinely complex activity shaped by weather, seabed conditions, vessel characteristics, anchorage density and human decision-making. That complexity raises an interesting question: what do we actually know about anchoring risk? The answer depends largely on where we look.
Different Stakeholders See Different Things
Professional captains experience anchoring risk directly. They make decisions about location, scope, weather, anchor watch procedures and vessel positioning, and they encounter situations that never become incidents. A changing forecast may trigger a relocation. Additional chain may be deployed. A vessel may begin to move before corrective action is taken.
Insurance companies observe a different part of the picture. Their visibility typically begins when an event results in damage, liability or a claim requiring investigation. Environmental authorities may focus on habitat impacts and regulatory compliance. Owners often see outcomes rather than the operational decisions that precede them.
Each perspective is valid and contributes valuable information. None, however, provides a complete picture on its own.
What Claims Data Shows
Pantaenius has seen an increase in anchor dragging claims in recent years, with damage affecting not just the vessel involved but neighbouring yachts as well. To put that in context, Olivier de Roffignac, Head of Claims at Pantaenius Monaco, notes that anchoring incidents still account for fewer than ten claims per year across the roughly 500 hull claims the Monaco office handles annually. The numbers remain modest in absolute terms, but they are rising and understanding why matters.
At first glance, even those modest figures might suggest anchoring incidents are rare. But claims data tells only part of the story, and there is good reason to believe the picture is more complex than the numbers alone suggest.
When an anchor drags and a vessel subsequently grounds or collides with another, the resulting claim is often recorded under the final outcome: grounding, collision or contact damage. The anchoring event that set the sequence in motion may not be captured as the primary cause. This is not a flaw in how insurance companies work; it reflects the practical need to categorise incidents by their outcome. But it does mean that anchoring as a root cause is likely underrepresented in the data. The true contribution of anchor-related events to overall claims may be higher than headline figures suggest.
What Captains Experience
Captains operate in a very different environment. Their experience includes not only incidents but also developing situations, operational decisions and near misses that may never result in damage. A vessel that drags briefly before being repositioned will not appear in a claims database. An anchorage abandoned because of deteriorating weather will not generate a formal report. A watchkeeper who identifies a developing issue before it escalates may prevent an incident entirely.
These events remain largely invisible outside the vessel, yet they are still part of the industry’s collective experience of anchoring risk. Our survey of professional captains found that 68% had experienced anchor drag at least once during a summer season, and 58% had experienced at least one near miss. That gap between operational reality and what appears in claims records is worth taking seriously.
More Than Just the Anchor
One of the most telling observations from Pantaenius is that anchoring claims rarely result from a single failure. As de Roffignac explains: “Our experience suggests that anchoring claims are rarely just about the anchor itself. They are usually about the wider decision-making process that surrounds anchoring operations.”
Gideon Fey, Vice Global Head of Claims at Pantaenius GmbH, identifies several recurring patterns in the claims he handles. Many captains place too much reliance on onboard technology such as electronic anchoring alarms and positioning systems, and too little on continuous, active monitoring of the situation. Anchor watches are used less consistently than good seamanship would suggest. Deteriorating weather conditions are sometimes not anticipated early enough, for example by increasing scope, changing anchorage or seeking shelter before conditions worsen. And in an increasing number of cases, vessels are anchoring too close to each other in crowded bays, leaving insufficient swinging room and significantly raising the potential for contact damage when drag does occur.
Survey data supports the multi-factor picture. Among captains who reported anchor drag, 75% identified weather as a contributing factor and 60% identified poor holding conditions. In 20% of cases, interference from a nearby vessel played a role. The anchor itself may be only one element in a much broader sequence of events.
Building a More Complete Picture
The purpose of understanding anchoring risk is not to determine which perspective is correct. Claims data is valuable. Operational experience is valuable. Survey data is valuable. Each reveals something different, and the challenge is understanding how those perspectives fit together.
Throughout this series, we will explore how captains, insurance companies and industry data each contribute to our understanding of anchoring risk, and where important gaps in visibility may still exist. Because before discussing prevention, liability or technology, it is worth asking a simpler question: how much of anchoring risk can any one stakeholder actually see?
Next Article
Many anchoring events never become incidents, claims or formal reports. What can near misses tell us about anchoring risk that traditional claims statistics cannot?
About This Series (article 1/6)
This series combines perspectives from professional captains, industry survey data and Pantaenius insurance specialists to explore how anchoring risk is observed, recorded and understood across the superyacht sector. The objective is not to measure risk from a single viewpoint, but to examine how visibility changes depending on where you stand.
