New Anchor Chain

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by slug

Galvanizing life is unknown

Galvanizing is worn off by the bottom substrate, the chain gypsy and the anchor roller design

The roller assembly is particularly aggressive on galvanizing

Best if Large diameter, the same as the chain gypsy , with a chain guide grove to keep the chain from jumping off and into the stainless bow roller cheeks , machined from plastic is best

No complaints about my rollers. They are large diameter, bronze, grooved. Work well, and the chain doesn't hit the cheeks.


Works so well that I raise my Spade with confidence from the cockpit when single handed, without even being able to see the anchor go into the roller. No swivel. I'll be using an Ultra this year; we'll see if it works as well.

[Andreas W]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I would gladly buy it in Germany. I even speak German. But I haven't found a source. If you have any tips, please post them!

I will make some calls tomorrow.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Andreas W

I will make some calls tomorrow.

Vielen Dank!

[chrisr]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Just to clarify what I think he is trying to say, when you have 60 meters of chain hanging down, that is considerable weight (500 pounds) for the windlass to pull, added to the weight of the anchor and break out force.


I have heard stories of people who lowered chain in very deep water and were not able to recover it, even after the anchor was loose.

exactly

in a past life i was a director of a shipping company. one of our vessels had a misfortune with her anchor and wound up with about 8 shackles (120m) of anchor cable hanging vertically (plus the anchor of course). the ship's windlass could not lift such weight and only after lots of trouble were we finally able to retrieve the anchor (and even then only at night when hydraulic oil cooler)

before you anchor with chain in deep water, be sure that your windlass is able to lift the weight of chain and anchor involved.

cheers,

[barnakiel]

Any chance you could move the chain a bit aft?


Then you would not care too much about that 100 Kg of difference. Your boat is 54' and 100 Kg is ... marginal ... ?


I am surprised your rope would be only 16 mm. This is what we have here, except our boat is only 26' and 4 tonnes ...


My choice would be your (1 - same/same) followed by (2 - go G7).


Btw we are too into new chain, we had Maggi ... (---p) or maybe this is just what we were told we paid for.



barnakiel

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Any chance you could move the chain a bit aft?

Then you would not care too much about that 100 Kg of difference. Your boat is 54' and 100 Kg is ... marginal ... ?

I am surprised your rope would be only 16 mm. This is what we have here, except our boat is only 26' and 4 tonnes ...

My choice would be your (1 - same/same) followed by (2 - go G7).

Btw we are too into new chain, we had Maggi ... (---p) or maybe this is just what we were told we paid for.
barnakiel

A la Dashew. Yes, it would be great to have a chain locker deep in the bilge, just in front of the mast. Somewhat complicated because it needs its own bilge and own bilge pump, but I would design a new build boat like that.

But impractical on my boat -- would be major surgery and huge cost, and would impinge upon or ruin one cabin which I need. I have a good chain locker in the bows, capacious, with a stout watertight bulkhead behind it. I can almost stand up inside it. It's divided to separate two different rodes; I keep the Fortress and the secondary rode in one side of it. 100m of 12mm chain fits with ease in the other side of it. Fenders on top when at sea.

[Andreas W]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Vielen Dank!

Sent you a PM

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Andreas W

Sent you a PM

Thanks very much!

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I used to consider the meatier material in 12mm chain to be a big advantage.

And then I discovered I can't regalvanise it. So that advantage goes out the window. If the chain life is determined by the life of the galvanising, then there is no reason for 10mm chain to last less than 12mm.

It is obvious looking underwater that using thinner chain for the same sized boat causes the chain to slide around on the seabed much more than using thicker, heavier chain for the same sized boat. The joints between the chain the bearing surface become smaller as you decrease the wire size.

The difference between 12 mm and 10 mm chain does not sound like much, but it represents a drop in weight from 3.8 kg per m compared to 2.3 kg per m. Of course this weight reduction is what makes G7 chain attractive, but weight and size reduction produces more movement and this causes more abrasion, wearing away the galvanising sooner.

The lighter and smaller the chain in relation to the boat size, the more “twitchy” the chain becomes, moving more with each small boat movement. The sand particles are hard and abrasive, which of course is basis of sandpaper.

If anchoring infrequently, the smaller, lighter G7 chain can have reasonable life. The life of chain stored in the chain locker is affected much more by simple corrosion rather than abrasion wearing the galvanising resulting in corrosion.

If you anchor many days a year, the shorter effective life of thinner, lighter G7 chain should be factored into the decision making process.

However, the weight savings are substantial. This often enables the fitting of a larger anchor, longer chain length while still reducing the overall weight. Attractive advantages. It only takes a small increase in anchor size to make up for the loss of holding produced by reducing chain size so the performance/weight ratio can be significantly improved.

[Wotname]

I vote for #1.
It is tried and true, you know it works. The price is right and and easily sourced.

If you expect to anchor in 50+ metres, then go for 120 or 130 metres and accept the extra weight penalty.

IMO, you will never be happy unless it is all chain!

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

It is obvious looking underwater that using thinner chain for the same sized boat causes the chain to slide around on the seabed much more than using thicker, heavier chain for the same sized boat. The joints between the chain the bearing surface become smaller as you decrease the wire size.

The difference between 12 mm and 10 mm chain does not sound like much, but it represents a drop in weight from 3.8 kg per m compared to 2.3 kg per m. Of course this weight reduction is what makes G7 chain attractive, but weight and size reduction produces more movement and this causes more abrasion, wearing away the galvanising sooner.

The lighter and smaller the chain in relation to the boat size, the more “twitchy” the chain becomes, moving more with each small boat movement. The sand particles are hard and abrasive, which of course is basis of sandpaper.

If anchoring infrequently, the smaller, lighter G7 chain can have reasonable life. The life of chain stored in the chain locker is affected much more by simple corrosion rather than abrasion wearing the galvanising resulting in corrosion.

If you anchor many days a year, the shorter effective life of thinner, lighter G7 chain should be factored into the decision making process.

However, the weight savings are substantial. This often enables the fitting of a larger anchor, longer chain length while still reducing the overall weight. Attractive advantages. It only takes a small increase in anchor size to make up for the loss of holding produced by reducing chain size so the performance/weight ratio can be significantly improved.

OK, that's a good case for the heavier chain. Although, I don't anchor out as much as you do, maximum for me is maybe 90 days a year, and most years less than that. My galvanising is going away through corrosion primarily, I think.



I would only question, however, a couple of the details in your logic.


First of all, I think there are few cases where there is ever any real tradeoff between anchor weight and chain weight. These questions just aren't related -- the chain in an all chain rode is normally many times heavier than the anchor (in my case 330kg vs 45kg), so increasing the anchor by a size or two is a rounding error (almost) in the total ground tackle weight. Peter Smith says "put the weight into the anchor, not the chain", but I just don't think that's the question -- "just get a BFA" I think more accurately reflects how most people will look at it.


Second, I don't think it's an actual tradeoff between anchor weight and the benefits of catenary from a heavier chain, either. A heavy anchor will ALWAYS give more holding power; a heavy chain only in specific conditions (deep water -- we recently worked through the math). So you can't use a heavy chain as an excuse to go light on the anchor -- just get the BFA, period, full stop, whatever you decide with your chain. The heavy chain is a separate and basically unrelated question.


I'm going to be experimenting with an Ultra anchor this year, which was loaned to me. My next experiment after that might be to go back up a size with the Spade, to 55kg from 45kg. My windlass handled the 55kg Rocna I had some years ago fine (10kg anyway is immaterial when the ground tackle weight 375kg in total; equal to just 3 meters of chain), I just had trouble handling the big Rocna with its awful roll bar and poor balance. The 55kg Spade is better balanced and lacks the cumbersome roll bar, so ought to work better.

[rslifkin]

I've always interpreted the "put the weight into the anchor" rule to mean "if you have a limit to your total ground tackle weight, it's better to save weight in the chain than the anchor."

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

I've always interpreted the "put the weight into the anchor" rule to mean "if you have a limit to your total ground tackle weight, it's better to save weight in the chain than the anchor."

Sure, but isn't that obvious? How are you going to materially reduce the weight of 375kg of ground tackle (my actual setup) by messing with a 45kg anchor? A size plus or minus in the anchor is a rounding error. That was my point.

[Breaking Waves]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

But in Greenland, there were places where I would have liked to be anchoring in 60m, and I think 100m of chain is too little for that. The problem is that the bottom in most coves there is too steep to anchor in, exept in the very middle and deepest part -- the only place to find something flat and silty to get your anchor into. It can be hard to find even 40m in some places.

Do you ever use shore ties?

They are often a solution in such a situation. They allow you to always be pulling the anchor 'uphill'. (and to be mostly hanging from extremely secure multiple shore ties). In ice country, they also can keep you away from the big floating bergs (which when properly done will ground before they get to you). It is super secure and comfortable once you get used to it. I realize it is mostly only people who have spent a good deal of time in Chile who get 'trained' on using shore ties as a general purpose solution but they then find it useful in many other places.

My personal exprience (which as you know is quite broad) has been that you can virually always find a decent solution other than anchoring in +30m of water. We anchored deep in Chistmas island and once or twice in polynesia but even in those situations it was by choice and we could have found a shallow situation if we had wanted to do some extra effort. On our first rtw (in a smallish centerboard boat) we had 150' of chain + rope and it was just fine. In fact that chain was split and almost always we had only 75' in the chain locker and the other 75 seperate in the bilge, only fully time used both lengths connected in the pacific. Mixed rodes are more useful (easier to deal with) on smaller boats and less friendly on bigger boats.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Breaking Waves

Do you ever use shore ties?

They are often a solution in such a situation. They allow you to always be pulling the anchor 'uphill'. (and to be mostly hanging from extremely secure multiple shore ties). In ice country, they also can keep you away from the big floating bergs (which when properly done will ground before they get to you). It is super secure and comfortable once you get used to it.

My personal exprience (which as you know is quite broad) has been that you can virually always find a decent solution other than anchoring in +30m of water. We anchored deep in Chistmas island and once or twice in polynesia but even in those situations it was by choice and we could have found a shallow situation if we had wanted to do some extra effort. On our first rtw (in a smallish centerboard boat) we had 150' of chain + rope and it was just fine. In fact that chain was split and almost always we had only 75' in the chain locker and the other 75 seperate in the bilge, only fully time used both lengths connected in the pacific. Mixed rodes are more useful (easier to deal with) on smaller boats and less friendly on bigger boats.

Shore ties are the classical solution, and most hard core high latitude boats have reels of rope on the deck for this purpose.


So I guess it's the right way to do it, HOWEVER, I have never liked lying to shore ties and an anchor (lying to multiple shore ties in different directions is a different thing). It's I guess a theoretical objection since I have relatively little experience, but it always seemed to me:


1. It's bad to have the anchor on a sloping bottom in any case. It's not really stuck there.


2. You are much, much less likely to find decent bottom on a sloping bottom. The stable seabed is always at the flat, middle part of coves, not along the sloping edges.


3. If you can't swing, you can't keep your bow into the wind, and you can have all kinds of off-axis forces on the anchor, if your are aligned with a shore tie. Seems bad to me.


and:


4. It seemed to me that Dashew doesn't use shore ties, preferring to anchor in deep water on short scope, no?




I don't know how valid any of this is, but it drives my possibly irrational feelings against shore ties.