I had to use a sledge hammer on my Marlin today!

[Gary M]

While dropping the anchor last week, a knot in the line got JAMMED in the hole coming up out of the anchor locker to the windlass. I could not clear the knot out there and had to come back in. Using the biggest hammer I had at home (the back side of my Boy Scout axe!) and a socket extension, it would not budge! Time to call in the heavy artillery so off to Ace Hardware to buy a 4-lb sledge hammer and a forged steel bar. $38 and about 10 good whacks later the knot was back down in the locker. As you can see, the knot was actually made of three lines of the anchor line and how this happened down in the locker is beyond me! Lesson here is to monitor the anchorline before any bottom fishing trips!

 

[gradyfish22]

My line used to do that a lot, used to get a twist as it came up and would grab a wrap of line, I solved that by soaking my line in clothes detergent, made the line softer and allowed it to lay neatly and untangled in the well. As it sits during the season it will firm up again and tend to do so, if it does I'll open the hatch, pull the line out and let it soak a few hours when I'm working on the boat and I'm golden again. That stinks you had to use a sledge, I've had to have 2 guys pull and push using tools onboard, but we always got it out on the water, longest it ever took us was 15min. It is very frustrating, I know from experience, and not something you wish to have happen on the boat. Best of luck, hopefully it does not happen again for ya.

 

[ahill]

Selsin blue also works as a good softener.

 

[Tuna Man]

That looks very painful (and expensive). Not sure I could bring myself to bust out the mini-sledge.

Looking back, would you have tried a different method to get it loose? I am not critizng your methods, just trying to learn. I have only owned a wndlass for about a year and a half and I rarely use it as we don't anchor that often.

 

[Curmudgeon]

Put a double swivel between chain and line and that problem should mostly go away. If you already have it, consider a 'blanket' in the locker to keep the line from jumping around in transit ... :wink:

 

[Gary M]

I tried the fabric softener trick once but I found that the line would then slip a bit on the windlass.

I think that I may have too much line in there (400') and that it doesn't "drop" and lay as well as it could. I do have a swivel, but another might help too.

I had no choice on how to solve the problem as the knot was completely jammed in the hole. The only solution was to pound the knot back down in the hole. No fiberglass, etc was damaged and neither was the line. Just my wallet!!