So, there are two kinds of sailors:

So, there are two kinds of sailors:

Those that hit the bottom, and those that lie and say they never hit the bottom.

We dragged anchor for the first time tonight.

Three days ago we anchored. Almost always when I anchor, I go and snorkel and check on the anchor. This time I did not. Why did I not snorkel on the anchor? We were in freaking 7 feet with almost 100 feet of chain. Our anchor is oversized and so is our all-chain rode.

We did pull down on the anchor hard, and more importantly we have been in the same spot for 72 hours with the winds between North and East.

But tonight a bit of a squall came in as we were returning to Ad Astra after having a nice dinner in town. The rain came down hard for at most 10 minutes and the winds could not have been above 30 kts.

But we dragged.

When we got back to the anchorage, I could immediately see that Ad Astra was pointing north west and yet the winds were from the east. Not good.

We dragged about 3-4 boat lengths back to this muddy sand bar.

As we drug back, Ad Astra spun her nose counterclockwise from East to Northwest.

The sand bar stopped Ad Astra from dragging further.

Before I moved her I decided to get my SCUBA gear on and dive and take a look below.

Most of Ad Astra was floating. Just the port keel was resting on the sand bar. But more distressingly the port rudder was over extended 110 degrees hard to starboard. As she spun around, the soft mud grabbed the rudder and over rotated it.

With a dive light in one hand, I dug all that super soft mud-silt away from the rudder. The rudder still would not move.

Everytime I went to work on the rudder it would silt up super fast, combined with the darkness of night I got a nice experience of ultra-low viz.

I tried giving the rudder a bear hug and rotate - I had fantastic leverage as I was in 3.5 feet of water and could breathe deep on the SCUBA gear and put all of my strength into trying to rotate the rudder.

I even tried to get my shoulders under Ad Astra and my knees on the bottom (wearing my nice and thick 3mm wetsuit, and to my surprise I could actually feel that I was able to pick up and move Ad Astra perhaps a half of an inch to the east.

Then I remembered that there are crocodiles in these waters. Night. Dark, silty waters. Ugh.

Hmm. Time to focus.

So I set a kedge anchor and tried to use a winch to pull the nose back to the east. To set the kedge, Kyle and I took our spare main anchor in the dinghy and dropped this heavy piece of iron about 3 boat lengths to the east. Before pulling hard though, I went with SCUBA to go check and see if the kedge anchor had set. It was not. This is the softest possible mud-sift I have ever experienced. With SCUBA gear I was able to set the kedge properly, and I checked on the main anchor earlier as well. That one finally set actually - so between the sandbar and the main anchor we were holding - and even picked up a large abandoned funky rebar DIY fisherman's special anchor wrapped on the main anchor. Cleared that.

Tried using a winch to pull on the kedge. Nope.

Tried using the main anchor windless to pull on the anchor, nope.

With the rudder at 110 degrees, going forward would be okay. But I forget to mention I had a monohull anchored 20 feet in front of me on the other side of the sand bar. So while I could go forward, I would have to plow through a 25 boat. So, can't go forward. If I go reverse, I have the possibility of snapping off the rudder

With my person safely up on the sand bank, but in SCUBA gear, I asked Kyle to rev the engines periodically in forward and reverse. With extremely specific small bursts of power. Max acted as my dive safety officer watching his diver in the water with a live engine nearby. (But that was pretty safe, no way Ad Astra was going to hop up and sideways towards me onto the sand bar.) Then made sure Ad Astra was back in neutral and waited for the silt to clear and assess how it was going. We were basically digging a hole.

But a good hole. A great hole actually.

Kyle had the best idea of the night. Basically alternate the two engines between one full forward and one full back, and basically wiggle our ass back and forth.

It worked. We pulled off!

Pulled up our main anchor and tied a buoy to our kedge anchor line and we were free!

Now we are going backwards into the strong wind.

But I still have NO helm. The rudders are stuck HARD to extreme starboard.

Going very slow, alternating the two engines, I rotate Ad Astra to the wind, and creep away from the sandbank. This is where cats are killer with the two engines.

Then we wash the main anchor off all that super soft mud. And take our sweet time to re-anchor.

This time I am not lazy, and get back into the water and check the anchor. To be honest it is buried so deep into the silt I cannot find the end of it.

I ask Kyle to do the reverse engine test. Ad Astra does not move at all.

Back to Ad Astra. Back into the dinghy and retrieve our kedge anchor. Nope. It is stuck on something hard on the bottom. Tie the buoy tighter on just the end of the anchor. Retrieve the rest of our lines. Back to Ad Astra.

Shower off the wetsuit, and SCUBA gear.

Four hours, and the team on Ad Astra got her back in deeper water, anchored safely. Great team!

Go look into the engine rooms where the rudder posts meet the steering cables.

Ah. There it is. The rudder post took enough of a thrusting motion to pop it out of the guard rails that govern the rotation and bent one of these solid steel guards.

That rudder is not moving.

Was thinking hard about pulling Ad Astra and doing the bottom here in Mexico as the prices are quite low. Now we will do so for sure.

Now, I am tired.

Originally posted on Facebook on January 25, 2018.