I 've read in various places, of people that get stuck on a sandbank or rock with a falling tide, opting to kedge out an anchor from the top of the mast using a halyard - thereby leaning the boat over and shortening the draft of the boat and freeing her of captivity...

Does it work?

My masthead is 63ft above the water. Draft is 6 '6". Granted I 'd have a lot of leverage working, but if one estimated a need for a (minimal) 3 to 1 scope to provide sufficient traction, I 'd need to attach the halyard to a rode that is 150ft long (plus the 60ft available from the halyard). Of course, if the water is deeper where I 'm dropping the anchor, that rode length would have to go up more. I don 't have a (readily available) 150ft length of line to kedge off with - so by the time I dug it out of the secondary anchor locker, the tide would probably have dropped too far!

My other concern is that the maximum length of rode that can be used to set the kedge, is restricted by the length of the halyard... as soon as the shackle reaches the sheave, you 're done...


Your thoughts appreciated... Am I missing something? or perhaps mis-reading stories of kedging off using a halyard...

Why do I ask this? It occurs that if this is a useful ploy, that it would be helpful to have an extra long halyard going up the mast - and sure enough, the previous owner of our boat did indeed install a very long (double length) halyard. Was it for a possible kedging arrnagement - or was it to enable a 2:1 halyard arrangement? (Whatever, it 's a Royal PITA storing all that line at the mast!)

Bill Balme

I think this comes into the category of Useful Ploys that are so seldom needed that you forget all about them in the heat of the moment. It would take so long to set up as to be too late for normal kedging off (I 've just been re-reading Riddle of the Sands, feeling for poor Carruthers as, many times a day, he gets into the dinghy, and runs out the kedge and warp quick, before Dulcibella sticks. A matter of minutes in many places, not only in the Friesian Islands). I 'd try and remember it if I got neaped on top of a bank, and nearly, but not quite, floated at the top of a tide.

How about shackling a block to the halyard, and leading the warp through that? Then you have no halyard length restriction, and you can hoist the block as high as is needed, but no higher, keeping the scope needed to sensible proportions.