Chain

[Gina Marie]

I am changing my windlass on Saturday from a non wildcat plated chrome unit to a new 3/8 chain wildcat all in Stainless steel. I currently had used 20 feet on stainless chain and a 1000 feet of line from my older unit. If I use all chain, which is my objective, how much chain do you recommmend I use. I do not anchor in deep areas most of my anchoring is in 100 to 150 feet of water.

Is it possible to mix stainless with galvinized if the manufacture makes the splice.

What are your thoughts on chain with line i.e. 300 feet of chain and 500 feet of line.

Thanks Gina Marie

 

[Freebird]

I do not anchor in deep areas most of my anchoring is in 100 to 150 feet of water.

Dang, what do you consider a deep anchorage? Most of the "books" recommend a 7:1 ratio, but I'm not sure that holds for chain. That would be a bunch of chain!

I'll keep an eye on this thread as I too am planning to convert to all-chain because I have a chain wildcat on my windless, and I can operate it from the bridge or pilothouse if I use chain. Otherwise, with the current rode, I have to operate it from the deck. Not a lot of fun when you're doing it alone.

 

[CARL GUZMAN]

GIna or Marie I think you have way too much line with 1000ft but hay I'm on the west coast of florida with a huge continental shelf so what do I know? But in a Sportfish conv. you really need your speed ( keep her light ) so I would go 100ft chain and the rest line. and save the stainless for your grapling. On my boat I have 350-400 ft of just chain heavy heavy heavy . when the wild cat gets going in the deep she starts screeming like she's in heat then with so much weight on the chain she starts slipin on the way up groning and complaining like the Admeral I think 100ft is just right.

 

[Paul45c]

I am changing my windlass on Saturday from a non wildcat plated chrome unit to a new 3/8 chain wildcat all in Stainless steel. I currently had used 20 feet on stainless chain and a 1000 feet of line from my older unit. If I use all chain, which is my objective, how much chain do you recommmend I use. I do not anchor in deep areas most of my anchoring is in 100 to 150 feet of water.

Is it possible to mix stainless with galvinized if the manufacture makes the splice.

What are your thoughts on chain with line i.e. 300 feet of chain and 500 feet of line.

Thanks Gina Marie

Tom, in our area I'd recommend about 350' of all-chain. And I wouldn't mix the stainless in there, even though the first few feet of it would look nice. Galvanized is going to be strongest, and you'd be suprised how much strength you're going to give up in going from (I presume) 3/4" line to 3/8" chain. Stay with the high-proof galv.

I know you were a little concerned at one point about your bow being a little low on the waterline. You'd better know that even 350' of chain is going to weigh you down more than you might think. Still, at least you don't have a heavy davit arm up there like I do, so I think you'll be OK. And yes, you'll definitely pick up some convenience with the all-chain when it comes to the shallow protected anchorages in our areas and the ability to lift her up from on the bridge, but make sure you've got somebody on the bow when you try that offshore so as not to stress your windlass motor.

 

[Gina Marie]

Paul is there such a thing as stainless and galvinized mixed???????? I have a stanless anchor would love to have some part of the chain stainless.

 

[Gina Marie]

Paul is galvinized stronger then stainless and will a manufacture of the product splice or weld galvanized a link I would sure hate to give up the stainless.

 

[jim rosenthal]

Take a look at "The Complete Book Of Anchoring and Mooring" by Earl Hinz. (I may have misspelled his last name). If it isn't in that book, about ground tackle and the use of it, it probably isn't worth knowing....

You need about a foot of chain for each foot of boat length, roughly speaking. The overall weight may be more important than the actual length. If you want to use stainless chain (I do) you need to compare the breaking and working strengths to galvanized chain and make sure the ratings are equivalent. You may be limited by the wildcat or gypsy size...

All-chain rode is VERY heavy and can significantly affect the trim and handling of a boat. Personally unless you are anchoring in rocky or coral bottoms, I can't see the advantage. I would use forty or so feet of chain and 400 or so feet of nylon rode, and you should be fine.

One of our other members (Akyla) uses stainless chain for anchoring on wrecks (he uses his Hatteras for dive charters). It has held up better than the galvanized chain he used before, as the wrecks would scrape all the zinc off the galvanized chain and then it would rust. I think stainless chain is great- but I don't have a windlass that it has to run through.

 

[Genesis]

I used my boat almost exclusively for diving - far more than for fishing.

We anchored all the time on wrecks, and there's no reason on God's Green Earth to use all chain. Indeed, its a really bad idea, as its a royal pain in the butt for the divers when ascending - if the links uncompress and then compress, you can get things (fingers, gloves, suit parts, etc) caught in the pinch points which makes the dive very un-fun very quickly. Its also much harder to ascend a chain than a line.

If you're wreck diving the right way to do it if you're going to sit on the wreck all day (or more than a day) is to "tie in". Before you hook the wreck you attach a "sister" chain to your regular one with a couple of snap hooks. You effectively grapple the wreck with the anchor and then a diver goes down, undoes the sistered chain and uses it to tie your chain to the wreck around something convenient. You are then secured hard to the wreck and can shorten scope to keep the line from getting abraded. Last person off undoes the tie and floats the anchor with a lift bag so its off the bottom (the chain will keep it from taking off upwards if done correctly) and that's that. When you start pulling up the line the air in the bag expands and the anchor pops up in front of the boat - retrieval can literally be done by hand with no windlass and very little effort.

I ran about 40' of chain and had 600' of 3/4" line in the locker on Gigabite. Never had a problem with this arrangement.

 

[Gina Marie]

Once again thank you for the information I will use appox 40 feet stainless with line. Thank you again will keep you posted.

 

[MikeP]

Wow, you guys anchor in serious water depth! I guess you have to do that when fishing/diving - I never thought about it. I work at trying to find anchorages less than 25 feet at high tide and prefer finding something in the 15 foot range.

We have 300 feet of all-chain and we're very happy with it. We also have 300 feet of nylon rode with maybe 20 ft of chain and a second anchor but I never deploy the nylon rode.

I can't claim to be knowledgeble on this subject but we've felt much more secure with the chain rode than we ever did with nylon/chain - the boat feels much more "planted." Perhaps it's a false sense of security. But we've been out in 35K+ winds anchored in 20 feet of water, mud bottom, plow anchor with 5:1 scope and she held beautifully.

 

[jim rosenthal]

I'm told that all-chain rode has some advantages in terms of weight and strength. On short scopes I think it would be an advantage. Down here, I know very few people who use it unless their boat happened to come with all-chain when they bought it...I don't think I've ever seen anyone anchored with all-chain in the Bay, although I might not have noticed. In severe weather, you do lose the advantage of anchor rode stretch and shock absorbing that you get with a long nylon rode, but the weight of chain is so great that you get a curve in in that helps absorb shock loads. For a big boat like the 53MY, it can carry the extra weight with no problem. For the 36C, putting a few hundred extra pounds in the forepeak is problematic.

I have thirty-five feet of heavy stainless chain on my 'serious' anchor rode. My working anchor rode has fifteen feet of it (I think it is 3/8 or 7/16 size) and a couple hundred feet of 1/2" nylon. In practical fact, the working rode and small Fortress are what I usually use, and they have done fine. My big Fortress and Spade anchors haven't been out so far this year, but I haven't done a lot of anchoring. But next year.....I'm going to anchor out more, and use all of them and get better at it.

 

[Liquid Asset]

There is no question that on a motor yacht, or a sportfish that is not used for fishing that All Chain has its advantages, but the weight to me is the single largest disadvantage. I carry 900ft of anchor line, and 50ft of what Lewmar calls their Tuna Chain. We regularly anchor in 200 + feet of water to fish and I have never once had the anchor drag. This has been done in 8' seas and it always holds.

 

[Paul45c]

Once again thank you for the information I will use appox 40 feet stainless with line. Thank you again will keep you posted.

Sounds like a great plan, Tom. Should work fine. And let me tell you, the line will be a lot better to deal with come hurricane time. You'll have a nice looking rig with that stainless anchor, too. Spent the big bucks, eh?! I'm jealous!