Big Bargain and Big Tides

I got a bargain at the weekend. As you do, I was looking through eBay and spied an anchor with a starting bid of £6. Aha! says I and chucks a tenner on it, thinking it would be handy for Jim. He doesn't have an anchor at the moment, he lost his old one a few months ago.

Well, I won the auction for £6 and duly drove to Haslemere to collect it.

The electric gates to the seller's house were interesting, the gravel drive through the grounds up to the house were interesting too. Luckily they didn't set the hounds on this dodgy looking Skint Sailor (I phoned ahead so I was expected).

The house owner led me to his outhouses and there she lay; the biggest anchor I've seen in a while. The word "Wow" did pass my lips when I first clapped eyes on it. Its a monster: the shank of the anchor is over a metre long! I sheepishly handed over my £6 and mentioned he would have got more money weighing it in for scrap. I carried it down the gravel drive and through the impressive electric gates back to my car.

Here it is filling half of my car's boot, bear in mind this is the boot of a Volvo V70 which isn't exactly small:

I reckon that the weight of it alone will keep a 20ft yacht anchored! Its probably more suited to something twice or three times the size.

Just need some way of storing it or mounting it on the bow of Jim's yacht, maybe with some weight in the stern to counterbalance it!

Last weekend saw 5.3 metre tides which is pretty high. I went down to Eastney yesterday and noticed that a few of the boats had moved around on the beach. The Snapdragon had stripped one of its beaching legs off:

Of course big incoming tides mean a rapid outflow out of the harbour. A yacht was struggling to get in even hugging the shore.

In the end they couldn't beat the tide and ferried across to the waiting buoys, although hooking up to that was a mission. That stream of turbulence in the foreground is a buoy that has been dragged under the surface by the flow. Not an easy thing to hook up to.

During my time up North last weekend I still managed to do something boaty by visiting the canals and rivers.

Anyway, I've yet another busy weekend this coming weekend. I'm working, so not much boatyness going on at all unfortunately.