Anchor/chain/windlass combo

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Depending on which winch you have/get some have a spot of the hole directly under the base of the winch. Some others come with 'clip on' (for lack of better word) type hawser pipe. And the others it appears you have to make it up as you go.
Most Auto Rope to Chain winches have some arrangement either built in or attached for the haswe

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But that was the question I was asking - none of the over/under anchor winches I have seen have a hawser hole either attached or clip on. The side by side ones do. If you are anchoring as I do normally every day when away cruising, there is no way you want to do that by hand - But because the cat is light I am using a mix of chain and warp so it's easier to use a over/under rather than a side by side BUT still do not see where the hawser hole is intended to be for a over/under......

I was hoping somebody had gone down this method and come up with a solution...

Michael
 
Engineers, Naval Architects, Architects all equal the same in our book. Can be shortened too PIA's. Pain In the .....'s /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Designers can be just as bad but at the other end of the scale. 100fter on 8mm ????? Sure a hi strength but all the same.

Usual situation: 40ft boat
Engineers, Naval A will spec 12mm after producing a huge pile of paper. Reason - 99% liability butt protection.
Designers will 'guess' at 7mm after consulting the 'weights' of the chains only. Reason - to go fast and look good lighter is best. They don't design boat to stop.
Anybody who has ever done any boating will use 10mm. Reason - they use common sense.

Mate... Akl is being invaded by Engineers of a wide and wonderful variety. No shop assitants or Sale reps anymore just Sale Engineers. No pen pushers, now Documentation Engineers and so on. It's bloody ridiculous but damn funny at times. So much so I don't employ splicers or riggers anymore. I have 'R2C Interface Engineers' and the like /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Michael - I was hoping GMac might respond in between chucking off at the plague of engineers up in his part of the country as I have not had alot to do with windlasses for mixed chain and cable rodes.

Whether it is one with both a warping drum and a chain gypsy, or one of the ones that claim to do both on the gypsy I think one has, as Magnacarta has said, to feed the rope part of the cable down the hawse tube by hand. That means that those vertical ones with the hawse built into their base would be very difficult with rope.

If using a windlass with a seperate hawse tube then it is an empirical science (ie GMac stuff rather than clever engineer stuff /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif) as to how far behind the windlass and how much drop is needed for the chain to stow properly through it - obviously the above deck horizontal run and the drop needed are related.

Not sure if I have helped much or even if I am totally correct, but no doubt if that is so it may fire my fellow countryman in the North aka GMac to correct me by giving you a better reply /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif.

John
 
Opps sorry MichaelE I missed that post. Must have been that red haze from the S Cat mentioning engineers. Rant finished by the way, for the moment anyway /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

On your basic Auto rope to chain winches there is 90% of the time a hole for whatever is being used on the gypsy build in. If you have a capstan on top of that you have to make it up as you go. It appears as if the main intention is to run a rope to chain combo rode on the lower gypsy and use the capstan for fishing anchoring and the like only. 'Fishing anchoring and the like' is when you run something not normal i.e 300mts of rode when hunting fish in very deep waters, bring up crayfish pots, hauling your mate off the putty and those sorts of unusual things.

On a older (bad use of the word 'old' really) type i.e chain only on the bottom and capstan on top it appears to be a make it up as you go thing again i.e your tailing off the capstan into a bin/locker with lid open and so on. Generally the chain will do it's own thing down a haswer pipe you have put on in the right spot by the winch. I have seen/used many that have a bigger haswer pipe installed just behind the winch which you have to manually push the bloody stuff down, assuming no small kids/ wife to go up and pull the rode down as you pull up. The bigger pipes are sold around the place and are 100 x 75mm odd with a lid you lift off (attached with small chain) when in use which makes it all a bit easier but still not perfect.

There is the usual curved haswer pipe you mentioned as well but again you have to push it all down or get someone to pull it. As you have noticed the chain is not to bad having that weight, it's the damn rope which is a pain in the bottom.

The short answer really is you need to swap to a Auto rope to chain winch to make it a real 'hands free' sort of an operation or come up with a cunning plan which suits you and your boats needs. Having a cat does make it tricky, any chance of mounting the winch in front of the locker and just tailing it straight on in, assuming it has a openable lid.

As you noted locker depth is an issue and the 2 rules are basically 'deep and skinny is a lot better than shallow and wide' and 'the deeper the better'.

Not much help I suspect, sorry MichaelE. It's one of those long asked questions no-one has a real good answer for.

Promise to ignore that southern Ships Cat until I've read all the posts in future /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
John - G-Mac thanks for coming back....

I just wanted to make sure that there was not a simple solution which, because I do not sail on many other boats than my own, I was not aware of....

I think I am going to try to go down the road of feeding it by hand into the locker and see if I can indeed mount an electric one in front of the locker... Even without a degree in physics or engineering I can see the chain/warp will never 'self stow' in a million years...

I just thank 'god' I never got an education - (effectively left school when I was 12) otherwise I would never try half the things I do try ............. I think!

Grateful for the advice,

Michael
 
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