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

Aleria once took a mooring block for a walk across the harbour into shallow water in a blow (another reason we don 't trust moorings). As the tide started running out, we knew we had to keep her off the rocky shore. She has an 8.5 foot draft and 60 foot mast. We tried setting a kedge anchor and running the rode to the winch but that wasn 't enough. So we used a spare rode kept in a deck locker for stern anchoring attached to the halyard, although we did not use an anchor. A friend came to assist in a RIB and when he hauled on the rode she popped right over on her side and out into deeper water. It was amazing. She didn 't have a scratch on her except for a scrape off the antifouling. I am convinced that it would have worked with an anchor, though with greater difficulty.

We do have an extra long halyard. The reason for it was not for kedging but rather to have extra length in case the halyard chafes at the mast top, which ours did do mid-Atlantic several times. It was on the advice of a well respected rigger in America, and we are grateful to him for that suggestion. It saved us several trips up the mast mid-ocean. Fortunately, we do periodically drop the sails to check for chafe while on crossings.

Vice Commodore, OCC