Who can break steel? I mean who can, literally, break steel? And not just any steel! But a stainless steel bar? A solid 3/4 inch steel bar? Well, Mighty Mouse of course 
More on anchoring, and especially windlasses (winches). Now most bigger boats have electric winches to uplift and retrieve the anchor and chain. It’s a mammoth task to do it by hand as we found out some weeks ago in Mile Hammock Bay when our batteries were flat – remember that episode! Hand over hand, inch by painful inch, Robert and I hauled in about 160 ft of chain (weighing about 1.1 lbs per foot) plus the 23 lb anchor from slippery, slimy, sticky mud!!! And as a kid I loved playing in the mud!? What happened?
Anyway, my windlass also has a lever on it that one can use to manually winch it in without having to haul on the anchor chain itself. It’s a slow, laborious process but will get the anchor up with less effort. In fact, one can do it singlehandedly.
So, why didn’t we use it? Simply because some time before this episode Mighty Mouse had decided to try out the manual system. Hey that’s why it’s a “shakedown” cruise – to discover and iron out the minor problems before embarking on the major journey J
Well, Mighty Mouse, aka me, tried the system and promptly snapped off the stainless steel bar!!
As it's supposed to be
What Mighty Mouse did to it!!
I guess after 25 years, metal fatigue had set in and weakened the lever to susch an extent that little force was needed to simply snap it off.
Fortunately, Muir is a great company, still producing great products and I have been able to simply order a replacement. As a Kiwi I hate to say it, but full marks to this Australian company!!!
