wing keel

[lewharve]

I think I wrapped my anchor chain around my wing keel, any ideas

[Ereiss]

Never had this issues myself but did a quick google and came up with:

Has anyone else suffered this hideous experience? We anchored for a couple of days in an area with strong currents and often wind against tide. Somehow the 2001 Bav40 snarled the anchor chain around the keel so it was impossible to lift the anchor. Major dilemma! We managed to get help from a large power cruiser who firstly dragged for our anchor chain, pulled it up and worked their way to the anchor and with a bit of grunt pulled it up, a Manson Supreme plough type. Then the anchor and remaining chain was carefully placed on the side deck. Both ends of the offending chain pulled up tight to avoid damage to the prop and away we went back to the marina where I will get our diver to see what's wrong. My concern with sharing this is that possibly the torpedo bulb at the bottom of a 1.95m keel exacerbates this problem. I can imagine winged keels being even worse. Any thoughts or avoidance tips?


Good luck

[Ereiss]

And this one

This morning we had an interesting challenge. About to bring the anchor up and found the rode (octplait) part was going back from the bow and must be around the keel. We had 25m of chain out plus 15m of octoplait. I was unable to pull it in but easing some out it slid fairly easily. What I did not know was whether it was a single wrap or maybe more, whether it also went round the saildrive nor definitely which way round it went. With a bulb on the keel which extends sternwards it was unlikely to drop off.
We considered four ways (and thought of a fifth later) to untangle this.
1. Let out some Genoa to see if it would spin the boat round enough. This worked but not far enough.
2. Use the tender to push the stern round. This worked easily and we were then able to bring the anchor up.
3. Try to walk the rode round the boat using the free end and then let it off quickly at the bow in the hope the boat would drop back, spin and be back to normal. We did not try this.
4. Attach a fender to the rode end and drop it all overboard then come back and recover. We did not try this.
5. Let out a lot of slack suddenly, maybe already wet so it would sink, to see if the boat would drop back and recover. We did not try this.