Advice re length of rope required for my bridle snubber

Portofino said:
Indeed the little blue yacht is probably over my anchor as well.
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Exactly. In fact, whenever I've been in similar conditions (like one night in Anse de la Garoupe, just outside PV, with a westerly F9 forecast which indeed materialised, and a sailboat anchored at less than three boat lengths right in front of us), I didn't even consider moving elsewhere, in the event that the other vessel would have started dragging.
With 70m or so of chain deployed, I just stayed on watch, ready to turn on the engines and move the boat sideways while still anchored, giving enough space to the dragging boat to let her go.
Of course the risk is that the dragging anchor could have grabbed my chain, making a mess.
But trying to move forward fast enough to recover the anchor with a vessel already so close would have been far more dangerous, imho.
 
Here's another angle on your first pic, Porto:encouragement:. 3 forum boats, (your Itama, DAW's sunseeker and my Sq) can be seen at 0:52 then 1:27-1:32. Not much chance of any anchors dragging on that day :encouragement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHEj_0BFEME

Sadly I can't anchor in this location any more: they have put up a line of buoys a long way from the shore and >20m aren't allowed past. Time for a smaller boat.
 
It seems you are all missing the point a bit here. The OP has said that his bow roller was damaged whilst at anchor in high winds and looking at the bow of the Prestige 680 I can see why because the bow roller protrudes well beyond the bow and is therefore subject to extreme side loading when the boat shears from side to side. That is the main reason why I habitually use a snubber on my chain when at anchor despite having a chain stopper fitted because it prevents the chain from imposing side loads on the bow roller even with the boat shearing from side to side significantly. Those of you with short bow rollers or hawse pipes wont be bothered by this. Yes fitting a snubber also stops the chain from grinding on the rollers of the bow roller assembly but that would be a secondary reason for using a snubber. As for the difficulty of removing the snubber in a hurry, most purpose designed chain hooks are designed to fall off the chain as soon as the load on it is released so in actual fact you could raise the anchor without taking any action to bring the snubber assembly back on board. To answer the OP's question, my snubber consists of a total of about 10m of rope with an Osculati chain hook tied in the middle and a rubber shock absorber installed in each 5m rope leg
 
I have just placed an order with Jimmy Green for a snubber with two legs, total length 3.4m (11.5 feet), made with Liros 22mm 3 strand nylon in blue (to match my boat colour) with an Ultra stainless steel chain grab (to go with my stainless steel chain). It will also have blue antichafe polyester webbing to protect the hull. I will post some photos later in June when its delivered and in use.
 
I must be missing the point here because I use a snubber ( mines only a 4 feet Y shaped thing) as I was told that the windlass should not be subjected to the strain of holding the boat at anchor . Is this not so?
 
Mike k said:
I must be missing the point here because I use a snubber ( mines only a 4 feet Y shaped thing) as I was told that the windlass should not be subjected to the strain of holding the boat at anchor . Is this not so?
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Yes that is correct although in light winds its OK to leave the chain load on the windlass. Its certainly good practice to rig a snubber to take the load off the windlass because not only are you relying on the fixing of the windlass to the boat but also the friction between the chain gypsy and the body of the windlass
 
Use a chain stopper -that's it purpose to take the strain off the gypsy
. If you want or are worried .

Each boat set is different , winch size , weight of chain / M,
Bow roller set up , windage , -then depth of water , chain out etc
Proximity to neighbours.

It's basically each to there own there's no one right way that we must all abide by when it comes to deploying ground tackle or retrieving it .
 
Portofino said:
Use a chain stopper -that's it purpose to take the strain off the gypsy
. If you want or are worried .

Each boat set is different , winch size , weight of chain / M,
Bow roller set up , windage , -then depth of water , chain out etc
Proximity to neighbours.

It's basically each to there own there's no one right way that we must all abide by when it comes to deploying ground tackle or retrieving it .
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I think you have missed Deleted User's point.
I don't see this as a "no wrong/correct way".
In EVERY case, you need to secure the anchor chain.

The Lewmar Windlass that is used on a lot of motorboats has a clutch that can be used to manually lower the anchor chain.
Using a winch handle, it is possible to quickly launch the anchor whilst controlling the speed of deployed chain by controlling the clutch.

When the correct amount of chain is out, the winch handle is used to tighten the clutch.
So, if you didn't have any other method of securing the chain, it would be really easy for the clutch to release the chain whilst at anchor.
Thats why we have used a snubber/bridle over the years.
Now that we have a proper chain stopper, we have started to rely on that rather than our snubber..
 
Except overnight or in strong winds I leave mine holding on the clutch and it doesn't slip nor does the load on the windlass do it any harm. In stronger winds I use the chain stopper; never a snubber. Each to their own.
 
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