Anchoring Smankering

Ken (being of the Captain type of sailor) and Gay (heretofore of the smile pretty and open the beer type of sailor) went out yesterday to practice anchoring.  Of course, the practice was all for Gay since Ken already knew what he was doing.  Before leaving the dock, Gay wanted to understand what she had to do.  Walking to the front of the boat she saw the anchor and mentally checked that box.  Settling down on the bow with some anchoring information purloined from the Uff Da's website (http://www.ayc.com/boats/Uff%20Da%202006.pdf) and the mallet and remote (with a dangling cord that was not attached anywhere) which Ken had handed her, Gay read something which, at that time seemed to say:

The anchor is controlled by some sort of _____ass.  And then there is this gypsy (or maybe it was a witch).  Somewhere there is an anchor locker (could she hid from the gypsy or witch in there?)  Pretty much anything you do could trip a breaker, break your ____ass or your real butt, damage the boat or, if you were lucky, maybe just throw you off the boat so that someone else had to do this.  Also there was something about a rode (or maybe it was a road)--could it make this all go away?

Okay, no speaka da English.  Go find Ken.  Ohh, Ken explains--the rode is anything connecting the anchor to the boat.  In our case 100 feet of really, really heavy chain and then an even longer length of rope (probably not called ropes on a boat because no ropes are called rope on a boat).   So, where is all that stuff because I just see the anchor on the prow and a little bit of chain that looks like it disappears into the forward head, but I have been in that head and I have not seen anything remotely resembling that in there (for that matter, not much in there remotely resembling a land-based bathroom either)?  Ohh, Ken explains, if you slide that little latch on the top of the bow (the front of the boat for all you boat-talk challenged people like me), it opens this little trap door and down there is the anchor locker.  So, I open that trap door, and there is a pretty big space there.  I probably could hide there with the chain and rope.  There is also a place to plug in the remote doohickey. 

Okay, back to my studies. 

So, next the instructions talk about how to lower and set the anchor.  They say (and this is a direct quote) "Control the speed of the chain running over the gypsy as the anchor is being lowered.  CAUTION: ALLOWING THE CHAIN TO RELEASE FREELY MAY CAUSE THE CHAIN TO JUMP FROM THE GYPSY" again probably causing some damage to multiple things.  Wow--picture that--a chain jumping away from a gypsy.  Back to the instructions--Once the anchor is set you need to set up the snubber.  Snubber--hmm--only me and Ken on the boat, so who to snub?  I will have to think about that.  If I snub Ken, then maybe he will throw me overboard since it is his boat.  The water temperature is no longer fun (although for my triathlon pals, it is 68 degrees and I know that is not really cold enough to whine about yet-right Celeste?).

Time for a translator.  Ken comes up to the bow and (rather patiently actually) sits down and points to the windlass, the rode, the gypsy, the pin I am to pound on with the mallet to release the anchor and shows me the snubber (a special hook that fits inside one of the links on the chain and is hooked to a rope--keeping in mind sailors don't use the words chain and rope).

Okay, Gay is finally willing to leave the dock! Oh wait, we need some signals.  Simple you might think--forward (both arms pointing straight up), left (10 o'clock), right (2 o'clock), stop (both arms straight out to the side of the body).  Hold on, how about back-up (how about hands on your real butt Ken suggests but we settle for hands on your neck with your elbows out--I kid you not).  So we get out into the clear in 15 feet of water.  Gay takes the mallet and the remote thingie with the dangling cord and wonders what happens if that goes overboard.  Not wanting to find out, she loosely hooks it around a forward cleat while she pounds out the pin.  Now what to do with the mallet?  Hmm--how about open a forward hatch and throw it on the bed in the forward cabin?   Open the locker.  Plug in the remote thingie (with only two buttons "up" and "down" working the remote was the easiest part of this job).   The remote seems to be the only thing on the boat not requiring a Y chromosome.

Keep in mind that Gay is only 3+ months post total knee replacement so kneeling is not really in the cards.  The boat is bobbing a little, but Ken managed to keep it really steady while Gay slowly worked through all these steps and now the anchor is somewhere in the water.  Gay cannot remember which signal is stop and which is reverse but Ken gets the message as she alternates between them. He does reverse and stop (in that order) and with a few more feet of anchor chain out, the anchor catches.  Yeah!! The boat is firmly anchored.  But now that snubbing thing.   Reach way out and stick that hook into the center of one of the links on the chain.  Now cleat off the rope part of the snubber.  Then let out a little more chain with that remote thingie to take the strain off the windlass.  Yeah!

Now what do we do?  Of course, we bring in the anchor.  Do all of the above in reverse order?  Not really, but you get the idea.