How Much Chain for Indonesia?

[UFO]

I have 80 M's of chain and I am thinking I may need to extend this with some line, but would love to hear from those that have experience of anchoring in Indonesia.

[Wotname]

It has been 30 years since I anchored in a few places in eastern Indonesian but I guess the depths haven't changed.

We had 100m of chain and 100m of line. Mostly the chain was enough but occasionally we used all the chain and some line. The worst case was in Ambon when it was full of rally boats and we were forced to anchor in about 350 / 400 ft. We joined up a few spare lines and added it to the anchor chain and line. It was protected and good holding and we swung off the pick like that for a couple of weeks. Getting it up was daunting and we paid some young lad to haul it in when we left. The manual windlass was too slow!

In the Banda Islands we were anchored at one place with stern tied to the shore with the stern in one or two feet of water and the bow in 20' of water. The anchor was in perhaps 100'.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by Wotname

In the Banda Islands we were anchored at one place with stern tied to the shore with the stern in one or two feet of water and the bow in 20' of water. The anchor was in perhaps 100'.

How much and what type of line did you carry to tie off to the shore? I know it was a long time ago, so if you can't remember no worries

[fxykty]

We have cruised much of the eastern half of Indonesia in the last 6 months. Depths 30-35m are common and we’ve gotten used to thinking <20m as shallow. We’ve been in fewer than 10 spots in that time where we anchored in less than 10m.

We have 90m of chain and that’s been sufficient - at 30m depth 2.5/3:1 is plenty of scope. We’ve never had to add line, but then the deepest we ever anchored was 36m. We have 9m long bridle lines so those add a bit of extra length (we have a 15m tail on the end of our chain to allow for the bridles). With 80m of chain you may want an additional 30m of line, but never more than water depth as you just don’t know what’s down there. However, we know people using 50m chain and 100m line, but their swing circles in many places must be scary. YMMV

For shorelines, we’ve used them in a few places where there isn’t enough room to swing, though we’ve also seen people using them bow and stern where it’s too deep to anchor or just for fun. We have 2x 80m lengths of 10mm single braid UHMWPE. Others use 14/16/18mm polypropylene line - you want something that will float for shorelines. 80m is more than enough for stern ties. Much of the rock is igneous and very, very sharp, so you’ll want chain or steel cable or similar for the shore end. We use 8m long polyester lifting straps for the shore end. Long loops are very handy for large rock outcrops or setback trees.

For med mooring opportunities (Sorong, Wasai, Banda Neira) long docklines or old sheets/halyards are generally sufficient. We use large funnels threaded onto the lines to deter rats (we believe our two cats are more effective at that).