What Now Skip? WNS

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timbartlett

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Powerskipper has earned herself a free subscription to MBY with an idea that grew into this:-

You and your wife have decided to anchor your 45ft boat in about 5m of water, intending to take the dinghy ashore. You stop, and as the offshore breeze starts to push the boat back, your wife stands on the "anchor down" button on the foredeck. All seems to be going well until suddenly, the rumble of chain going out stops, and is replaced by the sound of female swearing from the foredeck.

It transpires that the chain has come undone from the ringbolt in the chain locker, and the end of it has just dropped over the side.

There's a folding anchor and warp in the dinghy, but it's only a couple of kilos, so you don't trust it to hold a 45 footer. What now, Skip?

All the usual "rules" apply: your contributions may be used in MBY, identified by your YBW username and edited if necessary.
There are no "right" or "wrong" answers, but short sensible answers are more likely to get published than long ones or insider jokes.

Any ideas for future months are gratefully accepted!!

Kindest regards and have fun
Tim
 
I would take the Grapnel and line from the dinghy and attempt to fish out the lost chain using the Boat, not the dinghy. Far better to attempt to retrieve the heavy chain from the safety of the boat. hopefully a few drags across the bottom would catch the chain, job sorted!
 
Tie an old fenda to the dinghy anchor and chuck it overboard to mark the anchor position.

Go along side someone else wait for low tide to dive for the chain or fish with sea searcher magnet.
 
Davy_S said:
I would take the Grapnel and line from the dinghy and attempt to fish out the lost chain using the Boat, not the dinghy. Far better to attempt to retrieve the heavy chain from the safety of the boat. hopefully a few drags across the bottom would catch the chain, job sorted!
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All of the above but remember to mark the position quickly in the GPS as a starting point for the search.
 
Tie dinghy warp and anchor around wife's waist, throw her overboard and tell her to keep diving until end of anchor chain retrieved. If she's still too buoyant, remove dinghy o/b engine and tie to her waist too. That should be enough to sink her. If she doesn't resurface after 10-15mins, call local divers to retrieve anchor and chain and life insurance co to make claim
 
Yup, abort the trip ashore and mark with GPS. Come back (by car or on foot) to retrieve the anchor using a hook/magnet, or walking out to it at low tide, or if it cannot be diy retrieved then hire a diver*

Alternatively, in 5m she was surely only putting 20-30m of chain out, so if you ran out of chain you didn't have enough. In which case, don't worry about losing your gear because it was rubbish and you needed to buy new stuff anyway, so just go ahead and buy the new stuff.

*There is probably not much difference £££ wise in hiring a diver and just buying a new anchor for a 45 footer anyway. So if you cannot diy retrieve it buying a new anchor probably makes sense
 
Deleted User said:
Tie dinghy warp and anchor around wife's waist, throw her overboard and tell her to keep diving until end of anchor chain retrieved. If she's still too buoyant, remove dinghy o/b engine and tie to her waist too. That should be enough to sink her. If she doesn't resurface after 10-15mins, call local divers to retrieve anchor and chain and life insurance co to make claim
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that made me chuckle!:D:D
 
funny really as on Saturday we anchored in 4m of water in Osbourne bay, stayed an hour or so, was a bit rolly so wasn't great, wish we had gone to Thorness bay which was our initial plan... Anyway time to go and I was bringing up the anchor from wheelhouse as thats where windlass switch is, SWMBO and Daughter also in wheelhouse so no spotter as to when Anchor would appear out the water (but obviously had some idea from chain markers). Boat swaying a round a little and suddenly caught sight of the anchor just as I had released the windlass switch, so quickly pushed the switch once again to get anchor up asap as I was concerned it didn't swing and hit the hull and it shot up and the swivel pin snapped off and plop to the bottom of Osbourne Bay went my 10kg Bruce anchor...

So my WNS answer is as jfm's, I just continued on my planned overnight destination of Lymington and purchased a 10kg Bruce Anchor £39.95, and a SS swivel £19.50, and refitted within a few minutes. I do have a 7.5kg grappling style anchor as a sapre, so could have dug that out and re-anchored and then used the sea search magnet to try and recover... but are you kidding!!! it would be the needle in a haystack find... IMO anyway!
 
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Had it the other way round many boats ago, where the anchor came off the chain....
Gave up and went back at low tide, but never did find it. Maybe Powerskipper has got mine, thinking about it.
Anyway; no need to mess about in the WNS.. find a pontoon and a chandlery , and the bar.Someone will have nicked it before you get back anyway ;)
 
Deleted User said:
Tie dinghy warp and anchor around wife's waist, throw her overboard and tell her to keep diving until end of anchor chain retrieved. If she's still too buoyant, remove dinghy o/b engine and tie to her waist too. That should be enough to sink her. If she doesn't resurface after 10-15mins, call local divers to retrieve anchor and chain and life insurance co to make claim
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ROTFLMAO!
 
timbartlett said:
, intending to take the dinghy ashore. You stop, and as the offshore breeze starts to push the boat back, your wife stands on the "anchor down" button on the foredeck.
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Mrs DAKA says
" I cant believe your reading that instead of paying attention to me, I've been boating with you almost all our our married life and my job isnt checking range, wind direction forecast and letting more chain out before we set off for the pub, my job is simply to remind you to load your wallet before we go ashore, if you loose your anchor you had better not try to blame it on me "
 
DAKA said:
Mrs DAKA says
" I cant believe your reading that instead of paying attention to me, I've been boating with you almost all our our married life and my job isnt checking range, wind direction forecast and letting more chain out before we set off for the pub, my job is simply to remind you to load your wallet before we go ashore, if you loose your anchor you had better not try to blame it on me "
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...or spend 2 hours looking for bit of stupid metal that you should have checked wasn't going to drop of that bloody chain....:confused::rolleyes:
 
Firefly625 said:
and it shot up and the swivel pin snapped off and plop to the bottom of Osbourne Bay went my 10kg Bruce anchor...
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Firefly, you are the third case that I have heard of recently where the swivel has failed.

I never have trusted the things. Nor have I found them any good on other people's boats. I think I will continue to avoid them.

Thanks

Mike
 
dmmbruce said:
Firefly, you are the third case that I have heard of recently where the swivel has failed.

I never have trusted the things. Nor have I found them any good on other people's boats. I think I will continue to avoid them.

Thanks

Mike
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mmm, it was not the swivel part exactly that failed, but the initial part of the swivel which has a shackle style pin that runs through the end of the chain (well OK, it was the swivel, but not the part that I always think may be the weak link!), that corroded snapped pin was left on deck, rest of swivel went down with anchor so just left with chain... the stupid thing was I looked at the swivel only last weekend and thought to myself that it looked a bit tired, then persuaded myself it was just because it was galvanised and exposed to a lot of weather that it looked tired, but was sure to still be fine...:rolleyes:

I do think swivels do work pretty well but admit an anchor rode swivel is primarily a convenience. It allows the rode to self-untwist as it clears the water, easing the seating of the anchor in it’s roller...
 
I must be missing something here, why not jump in and recover the chain? It's 5m of water, for crissake. :confused:
 
Deleted User said:
Tie dinghy warp and anchor around wife's waist, throw her overboard and tell her to keep diving until end of anchor chain retrieved. If she's still too buoyant, remove dinghy o/b engine and tie to her waist too. That should be enough to sink her. If she doesn't resurface after 10-15mins, call local divers to retrieve anchor and chain and life insurance co to make claim
Click to expand...

I can see several potential floors in your plan, First off, you would contaminate the water with oils etc from your outboard, after 10 mins you will be off course as you have no anchor, who is going to help you tie up when you return to your berth and more importantly when you do buy a new anchor who the hell is going to carry it back to the boat for you?


Best thing to do is abandon the anchoring, find the nearest safe berth, go and buy a new anchor and chain!
 
MapisM said:
I must be missing something here, why not jump in and recover the chain? It's 5m of water, for crissake. :confused:
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You could be 100s of meters away by the time you mark it with fender/gps ,
remember the onshore wind picking up and we are no longer fast to the ground.



This is a bit WTFNS for dummies, who really doesnt have a spare/kedge anchor , 3 m of chain and loads of spare rope on board anyway, if anyone hasnt then just ask the boat at the side of you if he will sell you his spare for £100 or does the same dummy only carry plastic :rolleyes:
 
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