ANCHOR UP IN CHESTERTOWN

More will probably follow but our attempted departure will be our first story about Chestertown:

 

Charts seem to show you can anchor almost anywhere off Ctown that you want, although there is a notation on the charts, CABLE AREA, and there are a few permanently moored vessels.  We anchored between the notation and the bridge, in the middle of the river, in what we hoped would be an uncrowded corner of the anchorage, still close enough for dinghy trips in all weather.  As other boats came in for the Tea Party and Memorial Day festivities many anchored closer to the docks, right in the CABLE AREA.  These boats should have honored the notation, and we should honored it with a much greater exclusion zone.  More than one boat hooked up solid and struggled getting their anchors off the bottom.  One fellow IP sailor(motoror) in a PY Cruiser was lucky enough to be able to get the cable that he was attached to to the surface.  It was then simple, or it looked so from shore, to unhook the cable from the anchor.

 

We were not so lucky. When we tried to get our anchor aboard, the first 100 feet of chain came aboard normally.  The last fifteen to twenty feet would not come aboard.  We were hooked hard to something.  All initial efforts to drop chain, circle around, back up in the unhook direction, failed.  So now we know, Sea Tow does not cover anchor entanglement.  It would have cost us $270.00 an hour with a three hour minimum to get their help, and their help was two hours away in Annapolis.

 

Efforts to flag down a power boater for help failed at first.  We thought if we could loop a line around our chain, have the power boater drive directly away from our bow, the loop would slide down and unhook our Claw anchor from whatever it was clawing.  It would be just like how you remove a fishing hook from your finger using a length of monofilament line.  One power boater slowed, but just chuckled at our misfortune as he drove by.  He suggested we would be fine when the tide changed.

 

What was ultimately successful was diving down to the anchor about fifteen feet deep and tieing on a trip line.  A kind Captain in the power boat, Sales Call, did then come assist and took the trip line out.  We were just about ready to drop the dinghy and try ourselves.  However, we felt we needed more hands than we had on board.  We wanted one in the dinghy or pull boat.  One at the windlass.  One at the helm of Charmed.  Sales Call was the extra hand we needed, and she pulled and pulled.  Charmed motored forward and slacked chain.  The anchor just didn’t budge.  Sales Call was tethered by the trip line.  Charmed was still firmly anchored.  It was time to end the shennanigans, get the hacksaw, and get to cutting chain.

 

In desparation and right before going down below to get the hacksaw, I pulled and yanked and jerked on the trip line.  I didn’t feel the anchor move a bit.  But then I began shortening up the chain to save as much as I could, and all the chain and anchor came aboard!  Two hours late we were off to Weems Creek.  And as Debbie puts it, we now have local knowledge.

 

While all turned out very well, we could have lost an anchor and fifteen feet of chain.  Importantly we think we acted safely by not deploying our dinghy as the pull boat with only two of us on board.  We thought there would be much greater risk being two in two separate boats.  The river was fairly calm.  However, there were boat wakes, and winds were fifteen knots and higher.  Once, if, untangled, Charmed would begin drifting or need to be driven.  She would have been a moving target, albeit slowly, to land a dinghy on.  Our Claw anchor sells for less than $200.00.  We have extra anchors on board.  The loss of hardware would only have been inconvenient.