Scary
Guru
Bad luck yesterday, I fouled my anchor just south of the state park near Rio Vista. I had stopped to let the dogs run on the beach on my way home to Locke ca when my 75lb plow anchor fouled on what turned out to be a 1-1/2 inch steel cable buried in the river sand. I have never liked the feel of setting an all chain anchor rode as it is harder for me to feel when it's hooked up and set solid than nylon and chain. Well this time it felt real solid when I backed down. I had been down in the salt of the SF bay so I thought I would let out 200' or so and rinse off the salt from the chain. When I weighed anchor I couldn't break the anchor free of the bottom so I set up my anchor bridle with a hook and secured the 1"nylon rope to my front bow cleats and proceeded to try and horse out my anchor with all 66tons of Hatteras. It took a while nudging from different angles to finally pull the anchor free. To my surprise I pulled up a 1-1/2" steel cable on the flukes of my anchor. I had to tie it off lower the anchor to free it and release the cable. In the process the bridle slipped off my anchor chain and I ended up bending the hell out of my anchor roller bracket. In the scheme of things it might have been cheaper to have cut the chain and left the anchor on the bottom. The location of the cable is about midway between bouy 23 and 25 on the west side of the Sacramento River just downstream from the State park ramp.