I saw this video and I had flashbacks to a job I had on a damn submarine.
Yeah, submarines have anchors also.
I'm pretty sure it was at 637 class attack submarine. Somehow, the submarine operated the anchor windless at a too high of speed and it fouled itself when the chain was going into the chain locker. It necessitated putting the submarine in Dry dock, so getting the job done quickly was imperative with the cost of having it in dry dock was extremely expensive.
What a friggin clusterfuck I found when I went into the chain locker. With input from the boat, QA wrote the package up with pulling the anchor windless. That would have been a ridiculous amount of work and time!
Just think it as a huge gold chain necklace that got knotted up! I think Bubbleheads could screw up a cannonball with a rubber hammer! It was a huge ball of these incredibly large links. The boat's crew had worsened the situation, by trying to drag the chain back out, by dragging the anchor. It just tightened everything up!
For some reason they wouldn't allow me to cut the links, so I had to figure something out. They still insisted on me pulling the anchor windless, but did give me permission to try one thing before I had to do that. The compartment did have lift points for the riggers to install the anchor windless. So I made a call over to the Admiral's office and talk to my contact man. He got me 3 of the biggest Come Alongs I had ever seen, from the shipyards. It took me and two of my guys about 6 hours to get everything finally untangled. I cringe now thinking about the tension I had on some of those lines! The first one that popped a loose scared the holy hell out of everybody down there and made such a huge noise, ships crew come down and checked in on us.
We totally surprised everyone with how quickly we got things done! The Admiral of CINQPACFLT mandated that my guys and I would get 3 days of EXTRA liberty for getting it done in such quick fashion, but with as many boats in active upkeep, it was about 9 months before I got
A REGULAR day off, much less 3!
