Piggy-Back

What if you want to use an anchor and your vessel starts moving because the anchor is not holding? You can pick it up and deploy it again on the same spot, but if the anchor was deployed in a correct manner, it will probably drag again.
Now there are several options; you can move to another location, pay out more chain or wire, use another anchor or finally forget the whole anchor idea. In our situation the last one is not an option. We want to anchor out here, on this particular spot. To prevent an anchor from dragging one option is to connect another anchor to the shoulder of your original anchor with a chain or wire in between. This is called a piggy-back anchor and that anchor can be seen on this picture. We picked up SB-3 anchor of the Hermod, connected a 76 mm diameter wire on it, connected the second 22 tons anchor on it and finally stretched and deployed both anchors back to the seafloor. The second anchor must prevent the first one from dragging and dig in deeper in the sand. There is plenty of weight in front of the anchor because the distance from the Hermod to the first anchor is 2000 meter. That should prevent him from breaking out without our permission.