Anchor Chain Weight

[Nigel1]

Winding the anchor rope on a spool or bobbin, is this a problem with the rope's stretch or not ?

If the rope is wound on under tension it would be best to later take the rope off the spool, and they re-spool it on, but make sure you have a tight spool, i.e no gaps between the wraps.

[Fanie]

Thanks Nigel,

I cannot remember seeing anyone using a spool for winding their anchor rope on. I did find pictures of hatches with a heap of rope and chain in it. Somehow I think that can become a problem and I've seen some pretty awesome unintended knots

Does something like that exist, do boaters use spools for anchor rope winders ?

[Stumble]

Fanie,

There are some small boat anchors that use a spool system, and I would imagine that there are some specialty aplications out there that use them, but most boats just dump it in the anchor locker.

http://www.powerwinch.com/powerwinch...oduct&c=2&p=11

[Fanie]

Don't the lines get tangled up ?

[murdomack]

They use Octoplait as it does not twist like three strand rope does. More expensive though.

[Guillermo]

For the permanent mooring of navigational buoys (farms marking) we are using Yalex's Uniline and Hazelett Marine's elastic rodes. Expected life of the products, for the foreseen loads in this particular design, is 20 years. Shackles, clamps, thimbles and deep floating buoys will be the weak part from the point of view of maintenance. An eco-friendly mooring system without (significative) weight, easy to handle and deploy.

Cheers.

[Patrick BLOSSE]

Originally Posted by Tcubed

With anchoring, though, the only things set in stone are minimum scope and anchor weight requirements, the rest is pretty personal,i would say.

Hello,

As contribution for a sound debate, I kindly consider your opinion undoubtly convincing, but on a second hand, with respect.

Simply because if scope and weight are to be considered among other specifications including some more "pretty personnal", essentialy my own anchor must remain at the choosen place, above all, as "set in stone".
To my mind, only then come the other criterias to be considered: the vicinity on/in the bottom, the rope to be tied to the boat, easy handling, the area of anchoring, the weather expected, hazards to fear, etc...

In conclusion, all other factors, like the scope and the weight undoubtly influencing the underlined primary subjet, then must be appraised to obtain the best essential result for anchor holding capacity.

Fair winds to all.

It was a very famous 4th november 2008 in Paris in the vicinity of Harry's café: nothing to fear except good holding capacity !

Patrick

[FAST FRED]

"In my opinion, only a couple of boat lengths chain (at its most) is really necessary for usual shallow water depths, to increase the weight of the tackle at the bottom, avoid chafing and help reducing the working angle. Behind that I prefer to use a long, good quality and well sized rope. This also reduces weight aboard"

This would agree with Danforth , who recomended that his anchors be set with all rope , until the 1970's, when it changed to a short chain leader.

FF

[Tcubed]

Holding power is a function of anchor mass and design. Scope must be sufficient for the pull vector to allow the anchor to function. That is why i say these are the most important factors.

The catenary effect of chain disappears when it is most needed, in ultimate conditions.

In the case of small boats where the gear is brought on board by hand, it becomes fairly obvious that concentrating the mass in the anchor itself makes much better use of the weight.

Add to that the fact that most modern sailboat designs have the anchor locker in the eyes of the boat, and excess weight becomes a very detrimental factor.

I am not saying don't use chain, as chain has it's virtues, i'm just pointing out the broader picture.

Yes, holding power is the holy grail. That is precisely why i always advocate using heavy anchors. Over the course of the last hundred years there has been a disturbing trend towards lighter and lighter ground tackle. The reasons for this are lost to me, as more and more boats of ever smaller dimensions are fitted with power assisted anchor winches.....I've seen boats as light as one ton fitted with electric windlasses!

[Commuter Boats]

I would think that at least 60% of the commercial boats, troller's@ longliners, in Southeast Alaska, use a combination of wire rope and chain on the Spool.

[Commuter Boats]

Sorry, Troller's & longliners

[Guillermo]

Originally Posted by FAST FRED

This would agree with Danforth , who recomended that his anchors be set with all rope , until the 1970's, when it changed to a short chain leader.

Not only with Danforth, but a lot of authors and regulations. See the anchoring page at my M&M site.

A well spread tendency around here is using about one boat length only of chain and then rope (easy to bring aboard by hand only except for the heavier anchors), and that's also what our national regulations recommend. But nowadays, with the extended use of anchor windlasses, there is an increasing number of boats using all chain.

Cheers.

[Pericles]

Rocna for me.

http://www.rocna.com/

Explore the site. It's a distillation of years of experience, just like Guillermo's advice on his sites. Here's one. http://www.xente.mundo-r.com/motorsailers/

Regards,

Perry

[Guillermo]

Thanks, Perry.
Now it's time to go sailing for a while with my children.
Gorgeous day.

Ciao!

[robherc]

Hmm, what I'm getting from this all is:

"Ideally" the best POSSIBLE line would be a heavy anchor, tied to a very short (1-2 boat lengths) of very heavy chain, with a short section (maybe only a few dozen feet, even) of floating-type rope to avoid rope chafage, then finish out with nylon rope to avoid pulling up too hard on your chain/anchor.

unfortunately, that seems like FAR too many knots/splices to pull on board (2 is too many, 1 is plenty, though I'd rather work with 0) so, after reading several of the VERY informative other-sites suggested in this thread, would I be fairly well-off in a real-world scenario (20', very-light sailing tri. along the Gulf Coast of Texas) using:

A fairly heavy anchor (25-30lbs), about 30' of 1/4" chain (with an optional 20lb Killet to attack 3'-5' from the anchor in worse conditions), then about 200' of braided nylon rope.

Does this seem a fairly reasonable system, well, using about 3 of these with 2 as backup, or have I completely lost my mind, or gone off on a wild tangent here?