What's The Strangest Thing Your Anchor Picked Up?

[SV__Grace]

Old fisherman's anchor, pretty large but half eaten away by corrosion that looks like it's been down there for over 100 years.

[OldBawley]

Oddest : a big piece of an amphora. Still have it in the bilge. Some bay in North Turkey.
Most often : in some anchorages in Greece you can be sure your anchor will be fouled and you will need the local diver to free you. He is also the one who has wrapped your chain around his trap.

[svandante]

Some years ago I dropped my Bruce once again (after several stays before) in 40’ of water in a lovely anchorage midway up the West Coast of Vancouver Island called Queens Cove. I became concerned when the anchor set instantly and hard. Tried to recover it and it would not budge. Using a combination of lines run back to both primary winches plus the electric windless I finally got the anchor near the surface without breaking anything. I had a six inch (link size) mooring chain trailing off in opposite directions and I had snagged it somewhere in the middle. No idea how much chain I had lifted but clearly over 100 feet and the bow of my Island Packet was down over three feet. I attached a line using a beaner to the crown of the anchor and cleated it off. Releasing all the other three lift points allowed the shank of the anchor to drop, releasing the load and the boat rebounded with a vengeance. Never anchored in that nice shallow spot again, instead moving to 70 feet and more exposed.

[Nicholson58]

Way more interesting stuff than we picked up.

Dragged un row Hudson River. Pulled up a heavy, human sized bundle of tarps. Figured it was Hoffa.

Skewered this coral in Tobago last month. Took a while to break it off.

[CaptJimFrei]

Hooked onto a coral head in St Vincent. Finally got the anchor up and there was a chuck of coral twice the size of basketball pierced by the flukes. Tried to hammer it off; it was stuck good. Had to motor out of the anchorage with this coral hanging off the bow with at least a dozen other boats watching. Thankfully the local LEOs didn't see us. Got out to deep water and away from looky loos and was finally able to get the chunk off.

[skipperguy]

Back in the mid 80s. Simple powered capstan Anchor line retrieve. The bow went down a bit and up came the anchor with An older outboard motor, approximately 75 hp, and heavy, with chunks of a wooden transom firmly within the mounting clamps. My boat was smaller at 33 feet and the Bow pulpit wasn’t roomy so wrestling that thing off on a windy day, with my wife at the helm was quite the adventure.

[Alec H]

A small octopus. Anchored off Plana Cays in The Bahamas, an octopus found shelter in the boxy part of a Danforth. He easily made his way to a scupper and freedom.

[glanrock]

This past weekend I was slicing off fishing line like it was my job. Even as the anchor settled in I could see even more line at a 50 degree angle down into the water.


It wasn't interesting, annoying is a better classification for it.

[Pegu Club]

We have picked up an old advertising sign in Hampton Virginia, but the most fun was at St Mary’s Georgia when we dropped the hook on a sunk power boat, took some time to free ourselves with Tow boat US helping us, we did get a souvenir though, when the anchor came up, we had a stanchion with a light on it wrapped in our chain, we put a marker on our plotter to avoid it in the future,

Fair winds,

[myketch42]

About 15 years ago I anchored in the Aves , on the way to Colombia , That morning a very nice looking mermaid came up with my anchor . My girlfriend at the time made me catch and release . Have some regret over that .

[Jlp0217]

First time attempting an overnight anchoring, having done one practice anchor, my Delta anchor would not even pretend to set. I pulled it back up to find a tire stretched over it, the point in one side, and the ears in the other. It took a couple of hours to get it pried off using a crowbar and large screwdriver while hanging over the bow and laying on all the hardware mounted there.
Needless to say, my guests (my ex-wife and daughter) had zero confidence in my anchoring ability. My ex spent a sleepless night poking her head out of the hatch playing anchor alarrm. She woke me a first light, saying we had moved. The beach / shoreline looked very different at low tide than it did at high tide the nighht before.

[SeaFireTraining]

While I was sailing as Mate on a small coastal tanker, we had to anchor off the east coast of England due to a medical emergency. On heaving up, something was lodged on our anchor. Eventually, after much use of ropes and hauling up part at a time, we managed to secure it.
It was a stocked anchor with about 10 meters of chain attached. We had it hanging off the port bow, but couldn't get it on board (a tanker, our only derricks were midships, no cranes for'd).
Bound for Antwerp, then Dublin, I had visions of getting it off in Dublin. My wife did not sound excited by the idea of an 18th century anchor and cable in the yard. Unfortunately, before entering the locks at Antwerp I had to cut the lashings and return my find to the deep.

[pendragon]

A couple of years ago, sailing south on the Queensland coast, in Cairns I collected a 4 meter piece of bend steel balustrade, on Airlie beach a pallet and on Keswick a perfectly round ball of about 600mm of bright green colored rock wrapped with my chain. The anchor winch was complaining.

[Seabeau]

Many years ago, I inadvertently snagged one of the underwater electrical cable servicing parts of St. Catherine's Island, Ga. Pulled it up to the surface. Now that was an, oh ****, moment. ...

[noelex 77]

One factor to consider is that many of these anchors that have collected debris will have reduced holding power.

There can be a lot of debris and rubbish on the seabed.

I sometimes hear how people consider devices like anchor alarms redundant because they use good anchoring gear. I hope they read and consider the consequences of this thread. No anchor no matter how well designed can work correctly when tangled with debris.