Shimshal is not a lightweight!. She was build tough to withstand years of cruising and a few bumps along the way. Add to that the spares, stores, water, diesel, and the accumulated "stuff" collected over her 17 years she weighs in at around 18 tons. When not sailing or in a marina she uses her main or bower anchor to stay in one place. As with most cruising boats the anchor of choice is "as big as will fit" . In shimshals case around 45kg attached to 100m of high strength chain. With the anchor down and well set by digging it in with the engine going astern and 4 times the water depth of chain out the crew can sleep soundly knowing they will wake up in the same place and not dragging across the harbour.
The last part of the system to ensure guiet nights is the anchor snubber, a slightly stretchy rope which attaches to the chain with a hook and takes the load off the final few meters of chain. The chain is still there if the snubber breaks or the hook detaches but most of the time the snubber stops the chain snatching by giving a bit and cuts down on noise rumbling up the chain.
All this ironmongery is kept in check by the anchor windless which enables us feeble crew to recover huge amounts of chain and anchor off the sea bed.
We have been in Santa Cruz for a week with some quite strong winds and swell, Shimshal has rolled heavily some nights and the noise rumbling up the chain has woken us up a few times but she has never moved.
This morning was moving day, we were up at first light for an early get away for a 50 mile passage to Isabela.
Unfortunately it was not to be, the first 20m of chain came in easily but that was that, no amount of circling in either directions, letting out slack, tugging or reversing did any good. We were stuck fast. Luckily there is dive gear on board so it was time for an early morning dip. Dropping down the chain it became apparent that we were going no where, on the bottom, wedged between a few big rocks was an abandoned steel gantry structure about 1/2 as long as Shimshal, as we had moved back an forwards with the tide our chain had knotted its self several times round the steel work, luckily it was slack tide so the chain didn't have much tension on it so a few minutes of untangling saw us free enough for the windless to break us free from the chain eating monster. No help received from any sea lions at any time.
The shortened chain attached to the metal sea monster explained the noise from the anchor and the poor snubber had suffered with the unfair loads.
Anchor recovered and stowed, boat tidied and underway an hour later than expected it was time for a cup of tea.
Todays passage is under motor as there is not a puff of wind and the sea is flat. The snubber can be revived, out with the knife and an hours splicing will replace the chaiffed section with new and some protective hose to boot
Good as new.
This evening will bring a new island to explore, a new anchorage and new dive sites, all exciting.
Tim