Make sure you can release your anchor system without bringing in any chain

[turtleofdart]

Thank you for a fascinating and important post. On our monohull we have the bitter end tied to a welded eye in the chain locker with a strong bit of line that is long enough to emerge through the hawse hole on deck. In this way we can extend or release the chain without having to go below at all. It's important that the bowline which ties the last link onto the line fits through the hawse hole. In extreme circumstances the chain can be bar tight and impossible to take in at all.

[JPA Cate]

When it's bar taut, the sharp knife's blade just touches the line, and the line parts instantly!

Ann

[Mark Thurlow]

Lots of lessons;thanks. This reminds me why ido not use eye spices on cleats as they cannot be undone under tension and they put wear repeatedly in the same place. A well constructed OXO without any locking turns works great and can be released easily; even under great pressure.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by waterman46

...
You mentioned wire for your bridles. Not sure I see any need to make the catamaran bridle out of wire, since it never would be in contact with coral or rocks. Rope would be easier to stow and to replace when worn, and it can be done quickly with just a bowline at the chain hook and the other end to a cleat on deck. And the stretchiness of nylon is helpful, even necessary in some situations.

...

I must have written unclearly, sorry. Our two bridles (one from either bow) are 14mm 3-strand nylon, now about 1m shorter each due to being cut just past the respective tuck splices at the bow pad eyes.

Our chain hook was on a 1x19 6mm stainless steel wire, secured to a large pad eye. That was the weak link in releasing our rode under load. In our case the shackle (8mm pin) parted (fortunately) when I cut the bridles and the load came on the chain hook, just as we needed to ease our rode to try to get clear.

Our chain is attached to about 6m of 18mm 3-strand nylon line and tied off in our chain locker. As someone pointed out, we may change it to a longer length of floating line so we don’t have to rely on a fender or buoy when letting it all go.

[slug]

Avoid attaching your dead end pennant to the last link of the chain

Move two or Three links forward

When time come to let the chain run , cut the pennant , the extra free links give you a chance to shackle on a rope tail to your chain , or tie on a messenger for retrieval

[MV Wanderlust]

Wow, that's quite a story! Scary incident. Sounds like you did everything you could do to resolve the situation. In the end, you're both okay and no significant damage was done so it probably turned out about as well as could be hoped for. Good reminders to us all. Thanks for sharing the story.

[s/v Jedi]

Most of us have the chain hook on our snubber... for fxykty it is on a steel wire acting as their chain stopper to keep load off the windlass.

The idea from Slug would work if there was enough time to do all that and there wasn’t the better method as I suggested before: tie that retrieval line to it now so that you can just let the chain go when needed. Make it polypropylene so that no additional floats are needed.

[barnakiel]

There is more to the story than meets the eye!


I noticed some (ehm) sailors fail to recognize a VERY VERY basic mistake being done VERY VERY often (by most of us, ban the ones who got caught and learned the hard way).


Namely, never ever pull up on a working part of the line and then belay this slack part atop the same cleat (bollard, fitting).


Always always always undo the free end, take up slack, belay.


Similarly, never ever use any locking system that becomes impossible to unlock UNDER LOAD.


....


Cheers,

b.

[fxykty]

Regarding pennant and/or retrieval lines attached to the last, or third last, link of the chain, it very much depends on the size of the hawse pipe that the chain passes through. In our case, the hawse pipe under our windlass is not much bigger than the chain itself; there is no way a knot or a shackle would pass through the hawse pipe. Our pennant line is spliced through the last 5 or 6 links of the chain.

To use a knot to attach the line then the line would have to be relatively small and weak compared to the chain. That’s OK for a retrieval line, but no good for a pennant line whose primary purpose is to keep from losing the chain if the windlass fails and/or the chain runs out.

BTW, we have suffered damage to our port bow. It will be properly surveyed next week, along with the front beam and the other bow, and we’ll have to hauled out to make the repairs. While sailing home in boisterous conditions there wasn’t any movement but an awful creaking noise from the bow area with every wave. Sigh.

[slug]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Regarding pennant and/or retrieval lines attached to the last, or third last, link of the chain, it very much depends on the size of the hawse pipe that the chain passes through. In our case, the hawse pipe under our windlass is not much bigger than the chain itself; there is no way a knot or a shackle would pass through the hawse pipe. Our pennant line is spliced through the last 5 or 6 links of the chain.

To use a knot to attach the line then the line would have to be relatively small and weak compared to the chain. That’s OK for a retrieval line, but no good for a pennant line whose primary purpose is to keep from losing the chain if the windlass fails and/or the chain runs out.

BTW, we have suffered damage to our port bow. It will be properly surveyed next week, along with the front beam and the other bow, and we’ll have to hauled out to make the repairs. While sailing home in boisterous conditions there wasn’t any movement but an awful creaking noise from the bow area with every wave. Sigh.

Attachment 219741

Gee , an eye spliced 6mm dyneema pennant is very compact and rated at 3000 kg

If you can’t pass this compact pennant thru your chain pipe , something is wrong with your installation

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by slug

Gee , an eye spliced 6mm dyneema pennant is very compact and rated at 3000 kg



If you can’t pass this compact pennant thru your chain pipe , something is wrong with your installation

I was talking about a large diameter 3-strand nylon pennant with similar dimensions to the chain it’s spliced to. My point is if that’s what you’re using then you’ll need to splice rather than knot to attach the pennant to the chain. For uncovered Dyneema that also stands as any knot will slip.

Dyneema pennant may have two problems: not easy to cut and no stretch. For cutting, make sure your boat knives are very sharp, or ceramic. If smaller diameter, not too bad for cutting. As for stretch, I’m not sure that stretch is needed in a pennant so using the smaller diameter Dyneema is a good suggestion. And an eye splice of smaller diameter line even in the last link would still allow using shackles to attach a second chain if needed. My replaced chain stopper strop will be Dyneema.

An issue with having enough pennant line to float to the surface in say up to 20m water could be tangling of all that line. Would a chain sinnet https://www.animatedknots.com/chain-sinnet-knot be suitable for storing the pennant in the chain locker?

[s/v Jedi]

The polypropylene I use is the cheap yellow hollow braid stuff. It flakes and runs freely. I simply dropped that into the chain locker, followed by all the chain on top of it. Hollow braid is easy tool less splice to the chain. It is not tied to the boat.

When you use a chain stopper, you don’t need the end of the chain secured. Besides our chain stopper... if that would fail, there is also a chain stopper integrated into my windlass. Then there is a spare snubber with chain hook.

About strength: my 3/8” G70 chain has a working load of 6,600 lbs. This means a breaking strength of 26,400 lbs.
1/4” Amsteel Blue has a breaking strength of 7,700 lbs. As it’s role for chain stopper is regular use, it isn’t strong enough. For end of chain pendant it would be strong enough. For chain stopper 3/8” is almost 20,000 lbs and 1/2” is 34,000 lbs. I would go same size as the chain, especially if the chain is G43

[Nicholson58]

Who would think to bring a chainsaw as necessary equipment?

[Culwatty]

Originally Posted by Nicholson58

Who would think to bring a chainsaw as necessary equipment?

I have an electric power saw? Or a plasma cutter if you are feeling a bit low on energy

Really interesting story! Thamk you for sharing, its making me consider my choices for the anchor rhode upgrades next year

[barnakiel]

A wireless angle grinder with a blade does this job in like 30 seconds.


Chain 12, non-SS.


A hacksaw in about 2 minutes. 1:30 if you are frightened enaf.



b.