How to UNset an anchor?

[Kettlewell]

I once encountered someone anchored in the middle of the Alligator-Pungo Canal. He had dropped the hook in the fog and couldn't get it back up, and there was a tug and barge coming along that couldn't get by until this guy moved. I hopped aboard while my wife handled our boat, and me and the single guy onboard ran the anchor line from one cockpit winch to the other and put our backs into it. Slowly we gained ground until peering over the side a giant old sunken stump began to loom into view. Suddenly the stump capsized before it reached the surface and that bowstring of a nylon anchor line launched the little Danforth out of the water right at us in the cockpit, but very luckily it mostly impacted the side of the hull right about at the aluminum toe rail and ricocheted off without killing one of us.

[Andrew Troup]

Kettlewell:

EEEEk!

Now THERE'S an argument for a chain rode I hadn't considered... (at least as much chain as the maximum depth of water....)

[svmariane]

Thread Drift.....

Younger and more foolish - er, inexperienced - my not-yet-wife and I set sail on a chartered boat in Croatia. 'Twas our first time sailing together with no other folk aboard. We dropped the hook in this nice cove and proceeded with what young folk will do on a date.

The boat did what anchored boats do as tide and winds cause them to change positions. Concerns rise about the anchor holding overnight. But eventually we sleep.

So in the 'morn it's time to raise the hook. Hours later - hours - I'm still trying everything I could think to do, what with reversing techniques, motoring forward, line to a winch, and, and, and. The Admiral is unimpressed with my sailing skills.

Last hope: snorkel-dive on the beetch. Murky water. Can't see. By touch, find that the chain is lying in the mud/sand and wrapped three times around this huge rock outcrop! A storm wouldn't have caused us to drag.

When in doubt - pause and have a think and a look. Or so says me wife now when I start muttering to self when things go awry.

Sorry for the thread drift - but everyone else already gave plentiful responses and suggestions.

[Andrew Troup]

Kenomac:

regarding the floating line snagging on foul ground or being lifted by others: that's a great point, and one which I think supports the 'submerged buoy on a short cable' alternative(s)

This would have a better chance of not snagging or being snagged/lifted, when foul ground (or possibility of others seeking to share the same patch of bottom) is a factor.

The buoy needs to be very strong, though, if it is to be used as the lifting connection.

A squat discarded propane or LPG bottle, preferably galvanised, might be ideal - and given a steel buoy, an easy way to "find" it might be by towing a neodymium magnet on a light line at the right depth in a gridsearch manner, - not too big! - then when it's gone "klonKKK" to the bottle, use the line as a guideline for a noose made from suitably strong and NOT at all stretchy cable which can capture the buoy.

[Hydra]

Now THERE'S an argument for a chain rode I hadn't considered... (at least as much chain as the maximum depth of water....)

The same reasoning is also valid for a trip line: it should be made of rather inelastic stuff, polyester (or high modulus fibre, if you are rich) rather than polyamide.

Alain