How to secure the bitter end

I WAS RECENTLY WATCHING a dramatic video* of two men trying to board a 60-foot ketch left unattended at anchor on a lee shore on Pitcairn Island. There was a storm blowing and the ketch was throwing herself  around in a fine old fashion.

The plan, apparently, was to weigh anchor, motor around to the protected side of the island, and anchor again in calmer water. As I watched, I kept thinking: “Even if they do manage to get aboard, how are they going to get the anchor up?”

No anchor winch is designed to take the strain that ketch was subjected to.  Perhaps if they could motor forward, and their anchor chain ran through a stopper to prevent it running out when the bowsprit made a leap for the sky, they might have a chance to recover their gear before they were blown ashore.

But the obvious way out of this pickle was to dump the anchor rode as quickly as possible — to buoy it and come back to recover it when the weather had improved.  (Presuming that they had a second anchor and rode, as any cautious cruiser should have.)

And then I wondered how many cruising boats would be able to slip their cables for a quick getaway from a lee shore. How would they be able to find the bitter end of the rode in the chain locker, buried as it would be under fathoms of chain, and unshackle it while the bows were flinging themselves violently up and down?

Then I remembered a tip I learned while sailing on an old gaff rigger as a teenager.  The skipper told me always to make the bitter end of the anchor chain fast to a length of nylon line.  That line should be long enough to reach from the eyebolt in the bulkhead of the chain locker, up through the deck pipe and onto the foredeck.

In an emergency, therefore, when you needed to dump your anchor and line with utmost speed, you could simply let run all your rode and cut through the nylon line with a knife on deck.  If time and circumstances permit, you could also attach a fender or buoy outboard of everything to act as a recovery float.

Frustratingly, the video I was watching ended just after the first man finally managed to get aboard the ketch after a series of what could have been very serious incidents, so I don’t know how things turned out in the end.  I can only hope they got away safely.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6gMDlTTN6A

Today’s Thought

By experience we find out a shorter way by a long wandering. Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty.
— Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster

Tailpiece

Noah Webster, my favorite dictionary man, naturally had a passion for words. He also had a passion for his secretary.
One day, while the two of them were locked in fond embrace, Mrs Webster burst into his office.
“Oh, Noah!” she burst out, “I AM surprised!”
“No, my dear, you are wrong again,” said Webster. “It is we who are surprised. You, surely, are astounded.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Kinds of chain

OLD WOTSISNAME was thanking his lucky stars that his boat is on the west coast, and not in the path of Hurricane Irene, when we got around to talking about all-chain anchor rodes.
“I get confused,” he said. “What’s the best kind of anchor chain?”

Well, he’s not the only one who’s confused. An all-chain rode is very comforting when you’re at anchor in a strong blow, and it has so many advantages over a rope rode that most long-distance cruisers use nothing but chain. Anchor line gets dragged across the sea floor a lot. Chain is resistant to chafe on rocks and coral, and chain can’t be cut by the propellers of those idiots in outboard dinghies who pass too close to your bow in the middle of the night.

There are basically three types of chain, proof-coil, BBB, and high-test.

Proof-coil is made of low-carbon steel and has relatively long links. Its breaking strength is between three and four times its working load limit.

BBB chain is made of the same stuff, but has shorter links. It fits better in windlasses and stows more neatly. It has the same breaking strength as proof coil.

High-test chain is stronger than the first two types. It has a higher carbon content, which makes it more prone to rust. Whereas the first two kinds of chain will stretch and deform before they break, the more brittle high-test is more likely to part without warning when its limits are reached.

All three types are sold with a coating of zinc, of course, which should keep rust at bay for a good few years.

Today’s Thought
A subtle chain of countless rings
The next unto the farthest brings;
The eye reads omens where it goes,
And speaks all languages the rose;
And, striving to be Man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form.
--Emerson, May-Day

Tailpiece
“I see poor old Flossie is getting divorced.”
Yeah, she was the victim of an air disaster.”
“An air disaster?”
“Yeah — last time her husband went to San Francisco he came back by plane instead of by train.”

(Drop by Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for more Mainly about Boats.)

Stopping that chain

EVER HEARD OF a chain stopper? Not enough boaters have, apparently.

When I was managing editor of a boating magazine, I received an anguished letter from the owner of a Hans Christian 38 who almost lost his boat on a lee shore because his anchor chain kept slipping on the windlass.

It was blowing 50 knots and high seas were breaking in 50 feet of water off Isla Isabella, in Mexico's Gulf of California. A reef lay dangerously close aft.

When the skipper tried to raise his 45-pound anchor, and motor out of there, the chain just kept flying off the gypsy when the strain came on it, and even more chain would run out.

Eventually, in appalling conditions, submerged by waves sweeping over the bows, he managed to sever the chain with bolt cutters and power away to safety offshore.

What went wrong? Well, he shouldn't have been there in the first place, of course, with just himself and his wife. He had time to weigh anchor and put to sea when the wind first started blowing onshore. But it was nighttime, and he procrastinated, as most of us would have done, until the situation became pretty desperate.

In the second place, he shouldn't have expected his windlass to take the strain of a heavy boat plunging in rough seas. Windlasses are designed to break out and weigh the anchor and chain. Period.

Most anchor chains contact only one quarter of the circumference of most windlasses, so no matter how well the chain and gypsy are matched, excessive tension will strip the chain off the windlass.

The answer is a simple chain pawl or stopper. They're designed to take the enormous strain an anchor rode experiences when a boat is rearing and plunging in an unprotected anchorage. The pawl is a one-way valve, allowing chain to come inboard but not fly out again. Some pawls will fit right on the jaws of your bow roller and simply flip over when you want the chain to run out.
Chain stoppers are heavily bolted down to the foredeck in a straight line between the bow roller and the windlass.

As a matter of interest, a chain pawl can often make a windlass redundant on a boat of 30 feet in length or less. You gather the chain only when it goes slack. You don't have to bust a gut trying to hang on it when the bow rises.

This way, a reasonably fit person should be able to handle a 35-pound anchor with 5/16th inch chain in 90 feet of water without a winch.

Today's Thought
Oh hark! what means these yells and cries?
His chain some furious madman breaks —Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Maniac

Tailpiece
“How was the movie?”
“Didn’t see it. There was a notice that said 'Under 14 not admitted.'”
“But you’re 35.”
“Yeah, I know, but I couldn’t find 13 others to go in with me.”