On Jun 21, 8:24*pm, Wayne.B wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:46:59 -0600, Canuck57
wrote:

The problem: *The anchor windlass has failed in some unfortunate way,
and not easily repaired. * How do you retrieve your expensive anchor
and chain?

Drag the bottom with hook the right size to snag the chain.

Then what ?

What else? My cemen...er..."anchor" isn't that big, so you call your
buddy with the 35 ft. Grady or the gentleman and lady with the twin
diesel trawler to haul it out of the muck. But I also realize that
their rescue is conditional. I should be prepared to have them laugh
at me for at least a minimum of a week before they tie on and tug.
(and rip my boat in two and... laugh some more while high five-ing
each other)

?;^ )

On Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:58:25 -0700 (PDT), Katie Ohara
wrote:

On a
sailboat you can use the sail winches to haul it up, I've done that.
Attach a "messenger line" to the anchor chain and run it around your
winch to do this.
Mechanical advantage is easy to get especially if you have even a
single block and a bit of rope.

Good plan for a sailboat, was hoping to see something like that with
rolling hitches on the chain, etc.

Power boats are a little trickier since they don't have a bunch of
sheet and halyard winches laying around, quite possibly not even a
snatch block.