Hacked by a gypsy.

[OldBawley]

Been hacked this morning.

Sailing upwind while taking in the last meters of chain with our manual SL 550 Seatiger winch.
The anchor catches under the bobstay chain while the boat starts making speed towards a big two masted steel ship.
In order to take the anchor up into the bow roller I have to lower 10 inch of chain, the anchor will then turn by the speed of the water rushing by so I can winch the last 3 feet up.

Although I know how dangerous it is I grab the chain at the hawsepipe and pull it free from the chain gypsy. The speed the boat already has pulls at the anchor, force a lot bigger than I anticipated and my index finger gets hacked between chain and gypsy.

Awch. I never learn.

 

[sarabande]

Ouch in deed. Sounds like a quick accident beyond your control. Worth keeping a chain hook on a strong line handy ?

 

[GHA]

Ouch! Large forces vs human flesh usually end in pain .

Never once have I regretted splashing out on an electric windlass and remote

 

[nortada]

Ouch in deed. Sounds like a quick accident beyond your control. Worth keeping a chain hook on a strong line handy ?

Agree the chain hook option.

Where you single handed and did you have the engine running?

What depth of water were you in?

Reason for depth question, if the anchor was well clear of the bottom, would it have been possible to bear away into deeper water to avoid the other vessel and then sort it all out in slower time?

Always easy to be smart after the event but my questions are to explore the options open so hopefully it won't happen to me or others.

I should admit, unless confronted with a dead engine, I would never sail off the anchor. Too many things can/will go wrong.

In the Backwaters and East Coast generally, the holding is that good we often need to use the engine to break-out the anchor.

Hope the pinky is better soon.

 

[OldBawley]

Getting older I sometimes wish having a push the button winch. Taking up 40 yards of chain is heavy work.
Also a safety aspect lifting the anchor from the steering position.
I can still do the heavy work and like to think it shows. No gym club needed.
And then on some occasions I could take the anchor in and sail away where a electric winch would have been useless. No power = helpless. Stupid, I admit but it happened more than once in 30 years of sailing.
Also I like to lift the anchor while sailing away. Hate to start the diesel. That 350 kg chunk of iron heats in minutes up to 85 ° C, needs more than a day to cool down in this hot climate. The cockpit floor gets hot. Two inches of plywood with 4mm of lead as noise and vibration isolation and it gets hot. Hate it.
I see others always start the engine to lift the anchor, we do not need to. We sail away with just a decent clonk clonk of the old Seatiger winch.
Clonk clonk and my heavy breathing.

 

[OldBawley]

I almost always sail of the anchor and you are correct, often it almost goes wrong. I always think that it is from those times you learn the most.
Even when the wife is on board, I do all the work myself. Started with me not been satisfied with the missus speed and power, decided to do everything myself. No need for anger or yelling.

No engine running, the lugyawl sail sheeted to port. Main sheeted for clause hauled upwind sailing. Head sail on the bowsprit roller ready to pull out.
The boat leans to port forced by the yawl sail, the main fills, boat starts sailing. I can not keep up with the speed, so the chain pulled back to starboard under the boat.
Anchor sits deep, we had some heavy wind, I force the boat back with the powerful Seatiger winch. The moment the anchor breaks out the boat starts sailing.
Anchor hooks under the bobstay chain. I have lots of room, no problem, even with 10 meters of chain and the anchor still in the water the boat picked up speed enough to sail high on the wind.

Once I had to run to the back of the boat to sheet the lugyawl to the centre and roll the head sail out ( sails higher ) to tack up out of a bay and forgot about the 10 meters chain and anchor still in the water. After some tacks I wondered why the boat sailed so bad. Sailed like a slug.

Because the anchor is slowing the boat down been hooked under the bobstay, the normal procedure is to put the pawl in the gypsy, unlock the gypsy, tip the pawl out with the winch handle after which the whole santekraam falls down again. Then tighten the nut and winch back in.
Much faster to grab the chain, pull it out of the gypsy and lower 10 inches. Only this time the gypsy bit.

A electrical winch is a lot easer but I just remembered some occasions where no electrical winch would have done the work our modified SL 550 has done.

The heaviest fouling I ever lifted was an almost two meter long fisherman's anchor with two arm thick chains attached to it. It took my son and me hours of cranking with the four feet long handle and the winch in lowest gear to lift the sh*t high enough to dive to it. Each little wave broke a bit of chain out of the bottom, the fisher the mooring belonged to ( Agios Emiliani bay Symi island Greece ) was watching from his house, probably had already phoned a diver.
Bow deep in the water, stern lifting, we managed. No electric winch could do that.