26 October 2009

THE C HOOK, A MUST HAVE

THIS IS A MUST HAVE FOR US

We call this a C hook, and it saved our bacon again today. We were anchored in an out of the way side creek off the Waccamaw river in South Carolina, out of touch with the world, when we tried to raise our anchor on this rainy cold morning, only to bring up a massive tree stump hung on the anchor chain. Dave tried knocking it off with the boat hook, then driving with it and lowering the chain again, nothing worked. Ta-dah, trumpets blare, C-hook to the rescue. I wrote about this before, but didn't have the pictures to show you what it looks like. We bought this in Turkey, but you can make your own. Dave simply grabbed the chain with the C, hooked the heavier line around our windlass and cranked it up so the stump- larger than he could have bear hugged -was about four feet out of the water, then let the line slide quickly on the winch which, was enough to shake the stump loose. Most times, when he has another anchor he is trying to get off ours, he hooks it on the offending anchor line, ties the heavier line on a cleat, then trips the smaller line, and the other anchor drops loose from ours. It sounds simple and it is simple, but I can't think of any simple way it could be done without this little miracle gadget.
DON'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT!