What's The Strangest Thing Your Anchor Picked Up?

[noelex 77]

Octopi love anchors.

This is one of the cute tiny octopus that decided to form an underwater attachment to rollbar of my Mantus M1.

[pbiJim]

I anchored up behind the Longstreet in Cape Cod Bay one time to ride out a squall. When the Danforth came up, it had hooked onto a target bomb that was likely WWII era. I cut the line & reported the Loran position to the Coast Guard. I was advised to not anchor up there again.

[pbiJim]

Originally Posted by Wotname

AFAIK, all undersea power / data cables are simply laid on the on the surface of the bottom. They are buried in the littoral zone only. They are heavily armoured (think many steel wrappings) and quite difficult (but not impossible) to damage with a sailboat anchor and chain.

Damaging or even breaking one could ruin you day though!

A couple of years ago, a barge dropped a couple of spud anchors about 100 yards from where I normally dinghy in to shore. He hit an undersea power cable with one of them. Several blocks of Palm Beach Island went dark. That's a high dollar neighborhood where many of the residents have senators on speed dial. It was a pretty good mess.

[Kettlewell]

Have pulled up a lobster pot complete with lobster and an old bicycle, both in Newport, RI. The funny thing is when I lived there someone stole my bicycle and threw it into the harbor, though I was able to find it. Apparently that's a thing in Newport.

[wrwakefield]

I acquired a 2nd smaller sailboat in the 1980s that I planned to leave in Mexico Sea of Cortez. On my way S I ducked behind the Coronado Islands to wait out some Wx. When I hauled the anchor [manually] a few days later, it was much heavier than when I deployed it [or I was much weaker…]

It had a chain draped over it [I was the only vessel there…] I slipped a line on the chain, and finished stowing the anchor. Then I spend a few hours manually hauling 400ft of 3/8” BBB chain [no rust or growth] over the stern cockpit into a lazarette. It had a new high tensile Danforth anchor attached.

Ironically, 3 years earlier, I had lost an anchor and 120ft of chain on the Alaska boat [I had to cut the chain after trying to free the anchor for 2 days…]

The chain and anchor I recovered in Mexico was the size used on the Alaska boat.

So, I did a U-turn and headed back to San Diego where I had a truck parked awaiting my return trip to Alaska… So for now I am even on lost and found chain and anchors…[crossing fingers…]

Cheers, Bill

[wrwakefield]

Originally Posted by 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.

So true, Noelex.

Just a couple of months ago our very dependable 45KG [99lb] Spade was slowly dragging during final set/test in a sand and sticky mud bottom. This is a very rare occurrence.

Reinforcing your point; it doesn’t take much to foul an otherwise very reliable anchor.

We snagged the small log in the appended photo in 110ft of water. Wood does sink eventually…

Thanks for reminding us all.

Cheers, Bill