aving an anchor, a trap, or a drag caught down can be anything from an annoyance to a challenge to a joke to a tragedy. Sometimes a mere twitch on the line from another direction will do it, and the trap comes dripping to the rail loaded with lobsters. We should be so lucky!
I was cruising in the 28-foot sloop Dorothy with a crew of three girls from a girls’ camp. Instruction in seamanship was the purpose. We anchored in Cundys Harbor. After a night aboard a friend’s boat for modesty’s sake, during which the ladies scattered perfumed powder on Dorothy’s bunk cushions and the sanitary facilities were declared inadequate, we hoisted the mainsail and prepared to get underway. Two of the ladies were from suburban New York and still had a lot to learn. The other had raced A-boats out of Northeast Harbor and was quite a capable seaman.
The anchor was caught down. No amount of all the pull Jill and I could put on it would gain an inch. The other two girls were of little use. Drop the mainsail and start the sturdy little 10-hp Kermath. We pulled from different directions. Jill steered while I tugged and twitched. We circled our center. From time to time I got a little slack on the line, but the anchor wouldn’t let go. So I showed them how to bend the throat halyard, a double block and a single block, to the anchor line. With the not inconsiderable weight of two girls pulling down, of my swaying out and down on the halyard and of the slowly falling tide, we horsed up, bit by bit, whatever was holding the anchor down. Jill held what slack we could get with a turn on the belaying pin. Pausing to take a breather, I peered down the anchor line and made out the shadowy shape of a big, old-fashioned anchor. We hauled and swayed until I could see our little anchor embracing the shank of the old anchor. Jill made fast the halyard. It was a mere hour’s work to lower another line down beside the big anchor, make fast both ends, and pull it as tight as we could. Now came the climax! Slack the halyard. Our anchor came clear. Be sure no one had a foot in the bight of a line. Cut the line and the big anchor dropped back to the depths. We re-bent the throat halyard, cleared up the mess, and had a Coke all ’round for a most instructive morning.
On another occasion, I was beating up the North Haven Thorofare in the same sloop with a crew of boys on the same instructive mission. As we approached the town, the shackle on the throat halyard let go, the throat of the sail came crashing down and the sloop was unmanageable. What to do? ANCHOR. We anchored in good order. I took the opportunity to show the boys how to rig a bosun’s chair. Two of them, with proper precautions, hoisted the lightest aloft to retrieve the halyard block. They straightened out the halyard and installed a new shackle. I showed them how to wire the shackle pin properly, and we were ready to go.
But the anchor was caught down. Not only was it caught down, but it appeared from a sign on the shore that it was fouled in the cable running across to Vinalhaven. No amount of pulling could raise that cable, and too much pulling might break it. So start up the little old 10-hp Kermath and pull from different directions. Instruct the boys on how this would free the anchor. It didn’t. Dive? Too deep. About this time, a sympathetic lobsterman came by with the attitude of one who has been in this mess before and knew what to do. He took the whole coil of our anchor line , about 25 fathoms of World War II glider tow rope. He moved off to the full length of the line and “opened her up.” His boat leaped ahead. The line came taut with a jerk. He roared around our anchor, spray flying, boat heeled way over, line bar taut and zipping through the water. After about three fast round trips, he slowed the engine, gathered in the line, and brought us back our anchor. We thanked him enthusiastically, left him a token of our appreciation, not Coke, and we were ready to go.
There was no report of a broken cable in the store at North Haven.
Sometimes a combination of ingenuity and incredible luck will do what main strength and ignorance find impossible. My wife and our 15-year old grandson, a capable deckhand, anchored in Cutler harbor. We were in our 32-foot Friendship sloop Eastward on a yachting cruise. While we were ashore in Cutler, our anchor dragged. When we got back aboard, we re-set it. It took solid hold.
In the morning, we rose early and were ready to leave at high water, seven o’clock. We planned to take the ebb tide to the westward all the way to Southwest Harbor, where someone would be waiting to take us to a family funeral the next day in Massachusetts. Time was important. And the anchor was caught down. We had set it well. The throat halyard treatment failed. We passed our anchor line to the son of an old ally of ours in Anne Bonney, who pulled in various directions in vain. There wasn’t room to try the North Haven treatment. A passer-by told us we were caught in an old mooring, well known to Cutler people. Enter Ingenuity.
The anchor was a 35-pound CQR plow anchor. I guessed that as we pulled upward on it, the shank would stand vertically with the throat under the offending mooring chain. We tied slip knot loosely around our taut anchor chain, weighted it with a mackerel jig, and lowered it down our anchor chain all the way to the throat of our anchor, we hoped. Anne Bonney pulled and twitched. Failure. Time was ticking away. I went ashore where I met Dean Crossman, who found me a diver. He agreed to free the anchor at low water. I would return for the anchor by land or by sea. I went aboard to buoy the end of our chain, pulled the line up to where the chain was shackled to it, and to our stunned surprise, the anchor came along up as easy as could be.
We were under way before 9 and picked up a mooring in Southwest Harbor at 8:15 that night.
Being caught down can be dangerous. A fisherman dragging for scallops had rigged the drag line through a block on the top of his short mast. The drag went bumping along over the bottom and suddenly caught, The boat swung around and with the engine still running, heeled over so the top of the shelter was in the water and several barrels of water came in over the washboards. The skipper acted fast, cut the engine and cast off the line. I don’t know how he got the drag back.
Another friend of mine was dragging for scallops off Pemaquid Point on a rough day. He never came back. His boat was never found although a life jacket was picked up. People guessed that he got caught down and a big sea flooded over his stern before he could get clear.
Being caught down can happen to anyone, fisherman or yachtsman. Good luck, friends.