Anchor rode cut in Zihuatanejo anchorage! - 2015

 March 2015 - Currently anchored in Zihuatanejo, Mexico

This is about a three foot section of rode that was damaged.

We dd get our rode wrapped around our flopper stopper(FS) recently.  Our Magma flopper stopper (Magma Rock N Roll Stabilizer) was actually cut by that "stronger than steel" line. We have about 4 inches of it on the FS for a retrieval line. It got a bit wrapped once and cut two grooves into the FS about a half inch deep. They are a bit sharp. We will get them welded up this summer. They may have damaged our rode when it wrapped. I did dive the rode ad check it out for damage but could have missed it?

One strand was partially cut or cut through, I do not remember..

This is one of the panga type boats that are constantly going by here in Zihuatanejo .

Once we had to yell at a fellow who was on his cell phone not paying attention and heading right for our stern!

Yikes!

Had to suck it up and cut the rode in two pieces. We cut out the damaged section.

We put a cutting board on top of the windless to start the splice. 

We are still using the rode to hold the boat at anchor.

We could not find our fid so we had to use the marlinespike that was on our knife. This made the job harder.

The splice started.

Working away. First time we did a splice to join two lines together. 

We had to watch a Youtube video because the books we have are too confusing. For instance they say "now do the same on the other side"!! so the other side is backwards, that's confusing!

 I am sure there are plenty of good videos - we just happened to watch this one.

Splice is done! Now will it work? 

We tested it by backing down on the rode at 2000 rpm's and it held fine. 

That's the RPM that we usually set the anchor at and at 5.1 scope.

We tied a buoy to the anchor side of the splice in case the splice parted we would not loose our anchor and rode.

Up close.

The splice also fit in our gypsy up and going down into the chain locker!

We have been at anchor about a 100 days straight and have about two and a half months or two months to go so we need to do the field repair (at anchor) and keep cruising. This summer when we have the means and availability we will get new chain etc.