La Jolla adventures

[tony p]

Last sunday afternoon we went to the NW corner of La Jolla for some freediving. My buddy got a 35 WSB and saw a few more. Naturally I saw nothing. When it came time to leave the anchor was stuck. We tried every witch way possible to free it to no avail. Finally after 45 minutes it was getting dark and had made zero progress. I tied a life jacket to the line and cut the rope. I marked the spot and kept my fingers crossed I would find it later.

Today we went back out with scuba tanks. By some miracle we spotted the life jacket in about two minutes and I dove down with a tank and lift bag. Turns out the chain had slipped between a crack in a boulder, wrapped around the boulder, and then the anchor was hooked into the chain. Without a tank that anchor was never comming home. Fortunately it was easy to untable and retrieve.

Now here is the question. First my windlass lets out line easily, but barely functions to pull it up. Any suggestions as to what is wrong? Second, I spliced the two end of the rope together, however the splice section is a bit too fat to fit through the windlass' gear. Can that be made a bit larger?

Oh by the way....after freeing the anchor and getting re-set up, we dove for a few hours. Again I saw nothing, but my buddy got a 45 WSB. Both days we saw almost no bait.

[NoSlack]

Assuming your windlass motor is healthy, it could be a bad connection or the wire is to small. On the 26' the batteries and windlass are as fare apart as they can be. That extra distance with marginally sized wire could result in thee windlass only getting 10.5 or 11 volts.

Is the motor running at a high enough RPM for the alternator to help keep the voltage up above 12.5? On my boat it takes about 800-900 RPM for the alternator to keep the batteries at 12.5 V with a big load like my windlass running.

There is always the possibility of the wire being the correct size but the insulation has been nicked and salt water has gotten to the copper and created a high resistance connection inside the wire. I had this happen on my positive wire running to the starter and I was only getting 10.5 volt to the starter while cranking. That type of problem takes a couple volt meters and couple set of eyes to track down.

Mike

[tony p]

Thanks - i suspect that it is a voltage issue. It lets out line but often stops. I will check both voltage and wiring