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ideas needed on anchor recovery.( lost)


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gidday folks, ive had the misfortune of having a large steel anchore part ways with the chain right at bow roller. shackle bolt snapped!! i watched her drop into about ten meters of murky water in bay of islands. dived on air three times to no avail as zero visability. i have about a 50 m circumferance area where it is. any ideas on how. im thinking grapple? sharks in area and no viz means diving out. soft mud bottom.

would a good fish finder pick it up?? thanks in advance

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Grapple would be your best bet

Fish finder may pick up something but you won’t know what it is

It’s proba going to be in a pile if it broke way from the bow which will make it harder to find

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Neodymium magnets are incredibly dangerous and will fry any electronics they come near. The 100kg pulling force might be overkill. You could try a smaller Neodymium magnet or two in a stocking tied to a fishing line or light line, then follow it down once located. Needles and haystacks - good luck. Someone may also know about underwater metal detectors.

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If it were me, I'd use either the boat and the dinghy, or two dinghies, and tow as long a length of chain as you can across the search area, trawler / scallop dredge style.

If its a soft mud bottom, the chain should hook up on your anchor. You could possibly loop the chain over it if you believe you've hooked it up (drive the dinghy around in circles at the end of the chain, then winch it up with your yachts capstan.

Alternatively, if you think you've hooked it up with the chain, use your scuba, follow along the chain and grab it by hand. This is assuming you are comfortable diving in zero vis / wreck diving style, and with sharks, hmmm.

 

Need to use chain so it sinks / sits on the bottom and doesn't bounce over the target. If you don't have much spare chain, you could use rope at each end and chain in the middle / to drag on the bottom. Or rope with your dive belt weights at suitable spacings, or just any other weights to hold a line on the sea floor and drag it across the area.

 

Don't go too fast towing the chain. Need to make sure it sits on the bottom and doesn't bounce. Hopefully you can do this with the gear you have to hand.

 

If you have your yacht anchored on the spare anchor, you can do semi-circles around it with the dinghy till you find it.

 

You haven't said what type of anchor it is. If its a new Sarca Excell from Chains Ropes and Anchors, just go full-on, set off the EPIRB, light all the flares you have (at once) and declare a national emergency so either the navy or police dive squad can find it. If its not a Sarca Excell, flag it, have a rum, and go down to Chains Ropes and Anchors to replace it with a Sarca Excell.

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Cost up your time, fuel, etc versus new anchor.

 

 

One anchor I recovered had no chain on it so it can be done, it was tricky getting it on deck. But then snagging a 15tonne anchor with a 2 tonne grapnel was unlikely so getting it on deck was not really considered. An interesting exercise it was....

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