Fouled winged keel

[John T1594]

I was doing some arm chair sailing while sitting out the cold winter and I got to thinkling about what to do if or when my anchor rode ever wrapped around and fouled my winged bulb keel. I have a 2000 H340. Of course I could dive on the anchor, but how would one deal with releaving the strain on the anchor or rode so you could unfoul the keel? How would you turn the boat? Could you clear the foul from the deck?
What would you do?

 

[Ed Caldwell]

Fouling the anchor rode on the keel

Hey John, on a Beneteau 50 charter boat a few years back, the solution was to let the rode back out and let it sort itself out. Took about 5 min. On our 340 we often run out a stern anchor which gets in the way of the rudder, but same solution seems to work - slack and time. Unless your keel is different from ours, it's more a "beaver tail" than a bulb, nothing really for the rode to get caught on.

And yes the blisters on the keel stub have been repaired.

 

[Bill Roosa]

Well it is a sail boat. If there is wind just sail toward the anchor and the rode will slacken up enough to walk it off the keel by going around the deck taking in rode as you go.
Alternately you can raise the correct sail to cause the boat to "unwind" the rode. This does not work in some situations though.
Alternately alternately, you can grab the rode between the keel and anchor with a boat hook and take it to the correct (stern probably) end of the boat to get it to unwind.
OR
pull the rode aboard between the keel and anchor, attach a second rode and cut the old one. Then just pull what is left of the old rode abord. don't use a reef knot, a sheepshank is the prefered knot for this application.

 

[Jerry Clark H356 SV Persi]

It has happened to me once when anchored in very light and shifting winds. While anchored, the boat just drifted around and I was unaware of the entanglement until after I was raising the anchor. I was able to unwind by untieing the anchor rode at the bow and walking around the boat. Could have also used the dingy to go around to unwind. Trick is to tell which way it is wound up on the keel, once you determine that, it is just a matter of unwinding.

 

[Nodak7]

One other solution John is to use a killet (aka sentinel) in light winds. It keeps the rode down and away from the keel. Also, we have small anchorages so we use one for all anchoring due to scope limitations.