Anchor rope not attached to anything

[Shrew]

Tie a dowel to the bitter end of the anchor line. You can also cut a disk of the thickest pressure treated plywood you can find. Drill a hole through the center, then run the line in and tie a large stopper knot on the other side.

Either will prevent the bitter end from pulled through the deck hawse.

The wood will need to be inspected and replaced periodically. Heavy coats of a 2 part epozy, like a West Systems will significantly reduce rot from being wet.

[Tudorsailor]

Originally Posted by carstenb

the last 10 meters of our chain are painted bright yellow. The bitter end is attached via a soft shackle to an eye in a fiberglass support. I we need to let the chain and anchor go, we simply cut the soft shackle

I agree that one should use a line to tie the end of the chain to a pad eye in the locker in case one ever needs to dump a fouled anchor in a hurry

If you use a soft shackle, I hope its not made of spectra/dyneema as dyneema/spectra that is difficult to cut with a knife.

TS

[psk125]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Any fastening point within the cable locker is ONLY to prevent the bitter end of the cable from running away from you and going overboard.

Therefore, if your cable runs through a navel pipe fitted in the deck, a simple way to ensure that it won't run wild is to tie a "stopper" such as a "figure eight" knot in the end. In most boats that is likely to be enuff to prevent the bitter end going through the pipe. If it isn't, then tie a monkey fist.

Even when you are at the "end of your rope", i.e. you have all your cable out, the cable MUST be belayed to a samson post or an adequate horn cleat on deck.

Forget about silly little fittings within the cable locker. Surely it is better to take a chance on the cable running wild so you have to go diving for it, than it is to take a chance on having it tear off an inadequate fitting within the cable locker which may do considerable damage in an inaccessible place in the boat.

TrentePieds

We went one better than a figure 8 knot and tied the rode to a short 2x4 that would obviously not go through the hawse hole in the deck, but might also spread the load over a larger area than a knot. It helps to have enough rode so you never actually end up with all of it out of the boat.

[Bowdrie]

Originally Posted by psk125

It helps to have enough rode so you never actually end up with all of it out of the boat.

Yeah, that's not a normal disaster, it's what L. Francis Herreshoff would refer to as a "serious disaster".
In my posts I was thinking about a "run out" that would occur over a depth of water that one would anchor in, where all the chain would end-up on the bottom but still have enough line to stay connected to the boat.
Never experienced it, but there are videos of windlasses that have the clutch plates throwing off smoke/burning up from runaway chain.