Date: 13 August 2018. Routine Maintenance and the Thimble.

© janice142
 

It all started out innocently enough. One of my birds, specifically Bruce the night heron, roosted on the dinghy davit. He left me a mess to clean up as described in the Birds and my friend Dale the Welder article. That was not the bad part though. It was realizing I had failed to perform routine maintenance in the cockpit. I am thankful as this could have been a Very Big Problem. I missed a critical component related to safety aboard Seaweed.
 

I am fortunate to have discovered the problem before it endangered my home.
 

My friend Ken ↓ owns Sparrow, a 40' Rhodes Bounty. Skipper loves him.

A Stop Anchor serves an important role aboard a vessel. Should I have an engine failure being able to immediately hold the boat in place is vital. All I need do is drop the anchor overboard. The chain and rope will feed out automatically. The end of the rope is always secured to a cleat on the boat when I am underway. When the anchor catches and the rode is fully extended my boat will stop.
 

Years ago I had a situation where bad fuel caused the engine in Seaweed to quit. I was heading down current and toward the bank of a river. Because I had an anchor in the cockpit I was able to halt the boat before she slammed into the shore. That would have been particularly ugly as the tide was dropping.
 

I had a locker built into the port corner of Seaweed's cockpit for my Stop Anchor.
It matches the locker on the starboard side. Now I have seating for two back there.

Skipper stands on the starboard cockpit locker.
 

Because I had the hose out to clean off the night heron deposits (see the Birds and my friend Dale the Welder article) I decided to hose out the entire cockpit. That meant emptying out the lockers back there.

That is when I discovered a Very Big Deal. I had failed to perform routine maintenance.

The THIMBLE for my Stop Anchor was rusted plus the chain is a mess. Both thimble and chain are now in the
garbage. I cut off the thimble using an X-Acto knife Ken had given me years and years ago. Thanks again Ken.

You see, I stashed the anchor into the locker and ignored it. Worse yet, I had the line in a basket and the chain separate in a container that captured water. The water rusted an already not-so-great piece of old chain.

Now this was Totally my fault. When I bought Seaweed she had 16' of plastic coated chain on the bow along with an 11 pound Danforth knock-off. To be fair the boat was not anchoring out for months on end so good ground tackle was not crucial.
 

That chain was iffy at best ten years ago. I was going to save a buck though. I wanted to get my money's worth out of it. Honestly, sometimes I wonder what on earth I was thinking. This anchor could be Critical for stopping my boat.

Instead of treating the chain and rode between
the anchor and the boat properly I cheap'ed out.

I am relieved to have discovered the problem before my home was in danger. That is the good part. Routine maintenance would have caught this issue, had I only checked earlier.
 

Next I need to buy a new thimble then splice it into the line. I want to add some G4 chain too. This anchors' function is to stop the boat.  I will use a chain and rope rode. Rope allows for an elasticity.
 

*Elasticity: When you use all chain the motion is much sharper. The boat tends to jerk when it reaches the end of the chain. Rope stretches, therefore it is better at absorbing shocks. Three-strand rope has elasticity because it is stretchy. With a Stop Anchor the goal is to stop the boat. I do not want to put undue stress on my cleats, thus the rope will better serve me.
 

When I anchor with my all chain rode, I use a rope snubber to cushion the jerks.
 

Sometimes a gal just needs her coffee. Thimble discovery day was soothed by a fresh cup of coffee.
 

So that is my tale of woe. At present I do not have a dedicated Stop Anchor. That will be resolved shortly. This time I will pick a thimble that will not rust. It would be great to come across a bit of stainless chain too. That stuff is priced like gold but a gal can always look.

You never know what you'll find at a flea market or thrift store.
 

A night heron waits for me to return from one of my shopping expeditions:

That's it from Seaweed for now. Thanks for reading, and happy boating.
 

 

Do you have a Stop Anchor?
And, where is yours deployed? A friend keeps his on the aft rail with the line fed forward to his bow.

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