Norwegian Steam: Fouled Anchor

Monday, January 30, 2012

Fouled Anchor

Robert Discovers that the Chain Disappears Under a Large Flat Rock

7:30 on Sunday morning in Bahia de los Muertos and we were about to depart for a breezy run to Los Frailes when the anchor would not come up. It took another seven hours to retrieve it. There were three heroes in this saga. The first was Robert Rackl, who donned a facemask and jumped into the chilly water. The depth was about 20 feet and without weight Robert could only get down about 8, but was able to see the chain disappear under a large flat rock. The second hero was Paul Edler, the skipper of the motor vessel Viva. Paul volunteered the services of his panga, himself and his crewman. With a piece of chain and several shackles, Paul hitched the panga to our anchor chain so that the combined force of the two vessels could be applied to breaking the anchor loose. Unfortunately, that failed.

Paul then ferried Sally and Robert ashore so that they could find a diver and negotiate for him to free the anchor. They found the third hero, Jorge, a brawny fellow who teaches diving. Using only mask and flippers he was able to swim to the bottom several times and with the help of the panga of his friend Horatio, was finally able to clear the anchor. This all took place while the wind was blowing 20 knots, so there was some difficult coordination between Norwegian Steam, Horatio's panga and Jorge. When the anchor finally broke loose, what a sense of relief!

I have always been afraid that this sort of thing would happen. If it had occurred with Norwegian Steam anchored on a lee shore or, even worse, last year with a sunami wave approaching from Japan, there would not have been enough time to get the anchor free and I would have had to resort to cutting the chain with a hack saw.
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Norwegian Steam, the vessel

Norwegian Steam is the name of our 35' sailboat. She was designed by Ted Brewer. About 40 hulls were constructed by Miller Marine on Bainbridge Island, Washington between 1976 and the early 1980s. It is rumored that additional hulls were constructed in eastern Canada. Because many of these boats were completed by owners, there is a very great diversity in the fleet. To learn more about the basic design, you can find information about Ted's Jason design on his web site.

NS was completed by Alan with the help of friends, some of them professionals, over many years. She has been sailing since 2001. She differs from most (perhaps all) other instances of the Jason design in that her mast is 6 feet taller and she is rigged as a racing cutter, with large overlapping staysail. This rig design was inspired by the work of John Illingworth, the great English yacht designer and sailboat racer.

Norwegian Steam, the name

The phrase, Norwegian steam, may originally have been somewhat pejorative. When a vessel was powered by sails or by oars instead of by a steam or diesel engine, it was said to be powered by "Norwegian steam", the implication being that the Norwegians were so poor they could not afford engines for their boats. As time passed, the Norwegians themselves adopted the phrase to indicate a "can-do" attitude or doing whatever it takes to get the job done, even with limited resources or under adverse circumstances.

During the great era of America's Cup racing in J-Class yachts, the term took on a slightly different meaning. Many of the American defender boats had Norwegian crews and thus were said to be powered by Norwegian steam. A website has been dedicated to this bit of history.