Anchor/chain/windlass combo

Shuggy

Shuggy

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Hi. I know that a lot of questions have been asked about anchors, but this is fairly specific. I have a 13 ton wooden motorsailer (33') which is horribly under-equipped for my use on the west coast of Scotland. Our first proper family week away has just confirmed that, so the first major spend needs to be on improving our anchoring gear. I have a sore back after lifting the anchor chain with my gloved hands every morning...

She currently has a 45lb cqr with a manual (dodgy) windlass and about 40m of 3/8" chain (it could be more - perhaps 60m - but I also suspect it's uncalibrated).

I think I'm going to go for the same anchor but with 120m calibrated 3/8" with a Lofrans Tigres (horiz) or Leopard (vert) depending on dimensions & the exact position of my hatch - but I haven't got that far yet.

Does that sound like a sensible choice? The weight of all of this is not really an issue given the weight of the boat - at least that's what I think!

Any suggestions on length of chain and type of electric windlass gratefully received.

Thanks.
 
Windlass sounds ok, I'd go for the Tigres. Anchor is OK, seeing as you already have it. I don't know what depth you typically anchor in, but 120m is a huge amount of chain. You could end up with 60 or 70 meters of chain rusting away in your anchor locker, never deployed. A second, different type, anchor would make better use of all that chain and give you more options.
 
from your holiday, you will have an idea of what depth of water you normally anchor in. Get at least 3-4 times that in chain plus a bit spare
 
True. I have been thinking about the dreaded emergency when I might need to anchor in 30m + to keep off a shore (having tiny sails makes getting off a lee shore difficult). 120m felt about right... and I'm not too bothered about having it sitting there unused except for the 'big occasion' as long as it hasn't rusted solid - but winter maintenance should help.
 
I'm in with JS and Talbot. All seems fine but 120mts is a lot, 276 kilos actually. I think even your boat would notice that.

The Lofrans you mention can do Rope to chain, maybe cut the chain back to 60-70mts and put a big bit of rope behind it. This gives you deep water and a lot less bow down.

Another option would be to drop to a 9mm chain. 50kg lighter, less load on the winch and Lofrans have gypsies that suit it. A 'good' 9mm DIN has a break load of over 4000kg so no issues there. 9mm and rope ??

Just a thought.
 
Too much chain, the boat will be down in the bows, you may have to fit ballast in the stern to counteract the weight, how about 90 or even 80 meters, you could extend that with a rope, should more scope be required. The windlasses you talk about can take chain and rope.
My boat is 57' and 48 tons, I only have 90meters of chain, remember that is a bunch!
 
reducing chain size has a big impact on olding power. You are much better of having less length and bigger chain+rope, than smaller chain and lots of it sitting in the locker doing nothing!
 
On a 40 foot 12 tonne yacht we carry 75 m of 10mm chain, and also 120 m long rope cable with 10 m of chain separately stowed unattached to the main cable.

We normally anchor in around 18 to 25m depth and have never found the need for more chain and have never used the rope cable for anchoring. That even tho' we have sat out a number of long duration storm force winds in those depths including maintained around 60 knots but sheltered from heavy seas.

But would not suggest going without the rope in case needed for depth and also as a spare rode (together with 10m or so of chain) should the main chain cable be lost. It also serves for towing (so is oversized at 20mm) and if a heavy line ashore is needed.

Maybe something similar would suit.

We carry a 27kg plough anchor of similar style to the CQR (together with a spare) and suggest that yours would be fine for your shorter boat, although you may get alot of contradicting opinions that others are better /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif.

For the windlass, if commonly anchoring in deeper water my suggestion would be to go for one at the larger end of the recommendations for your boat size. In our case, for weight of chain and anchor as set out above, we find a 1200 watt windlass is as small as we would care to go and if previously sat out heavyish winds it won't, not unexpectedly, break the anchor out.

John
 
[ QUOTE ]
reducing chain size has a big impact on olding power. You are much better of having less length and bigger chain+rope, than smaller chain and lots of it sitting in the locker doing nothing!

[/ QUOTE ]

Wrong and yet still sort of right /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

2 chains of the same total weight:
The short big one will not have as much catenery as a long smaller one. The shorter big chain will, most likely, get to max catenery more often as it is more likely to be 'all out' more than a longer chain though. That make sense?? /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

He is talking 10mm chain which is in the overkill area easily anyway. Personally I'd run all 8mm myself but I can understand if this does not make him feel happy.

Mr Ships Cat, G'day by the way, don't pick anchor winches by motor wattage size. Its the gearbox which has a huge baring on the grunt. Sure bigger motors are all good but the 'gruntest' winches don't necessarily have the biggest watt motors.
 
don't pick anchor winches by motor wattage size. Its the gearbox which has a huge baring on the grunt

Hi GMac

Yes am very well aware of that (I have a degree in physics /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif) but I did not want to get into the realms of talking makers names to try and differentiate along other lines else would turn into like an anchor thread - "Mine is best", "No mine is better", etc, etc.

In general motor size does give an idea of gruntyness given similar chain recovery rates and many are fairly similar in that rate ie kW is proportional to Force x Distance / Time.

By way of example the Maxwell 1200, which we have and I referred to not by name, and the vertical Lofrans 1500 (1200 watts, and the original poster was talking Lofrans) have similar retrieval speeds.

In fact many windlasses are differentiated within product ranges by a suffix related in some way to the motor power in watts (equal to in the case of the smaller Maxwells, for example).

Regards

John
 
[ QUOTE ]
Wrong and yet still sort of right

[/ QUOTE ]

if you were talking about 5-10 mtres of chain, I would accept your theory. However, 30m of chain is a different matter entirely. To busy to go into why, suffice it to say that I have tested this and now have 30m of 10m chain + octoplait.
 
Sorry -been snowed under at work so just come back to this. Many thanks to all. 120m would seem to be too much, so will do less & will extend with decent rope. I have a chunky kedge with chain and rope which is meant to serve in an emergency. She sits high at the bows anyway (or has been painted wrongly?) so the extra weight of going from 40m to 90m-odd should not make a major impact.

Just need the money now!

Regards,

Shuggy
 
[ QUOTE ]
don't pick anchor winches by motor wattage size. Its the gearbox which has a huge baring on the grunt

Hi GMac

Yes am very well aware of that (I have a degree in physics /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif)

[/ QUOTE ]
We deal a lot with bods with engineering degrees and ........ Needless to say life would be more enjoyable and safer without a lot of them /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Nice people but talk about making something simple into a major complex drama... 'expletive deleated' me!

[ QUOTE ]
but I did not want to get into the realms of talking makers names to try and differentiate along other lines else would turn into like an anchor thread - "Mine is best", "No mine is better", etc, etc.

In general motor size does give an idea of gruntyness given similar chain recovery rates and many are fairly similar in that rate ie kW is proportional to Force x Distance / Time.

By way of example the Maxwell 1200, which we have and I referred to not by name, and the vertical Lofrans 1500 (1200 watts, and the original poster was talking Lofrans) have similar retrieval speeds.

In fact many windlasses are differentiated within product ranges by a suffix related in some way to the motor power in watts (equal to in the case of the smaller Maxwells, for example).

Regards

John

[/ QUOTE ]

Valid points, as usual.
By the way the 1200 is now a 1500 i.e 1500lb max pull.
Lofrans (and a couple of the others) now use variable wattage motors. A 1500W motor for example now starts to pull using 2000W and as the load tapers off the wattage can drop to as low as 700W. Quite a cool idea really having that extra 'snatch' grunt and less stress on the batteries.

Keep safe all
 
quick question.

I am going to install an electric windlass on the deck of my cat. With a rope and a chain capstan - one above the other and the motor below the deck....

I cannot see where you insert a hawser hole? - not to mention blocking it up at sea. Or are they designed for the curved, vent shaped hawser tubes?

The other worry is that there will only be a couple of foot 'drop' so I doubt that even the chain will fall very easily.... Am I missing something?

- I am beginning to think that this type of capstan was not really designed to feed chain and warp directly into a hawser hole - rather into a locker...

Michael
 
We deal a lot with bods with engineering degrees

I'm ok then /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif - as I said I am not an engineer.

John
 
[ QUOTE ]
quick question.

I am going to install an electric windlass on the deck of my cat. With a rope and a chain capstan - one above the other and the motor below the deck....

I cannot see where you insert a hawser hole? - not to mention blocking it up at sea. Or are they designed for the curved, vent shaped hawser tubes?

The other worry is that there will only be a couple of foot 'drop' so I doubt that even the chain will fall very easily.... Am I missing something?

- I am beginning to think that this type of capstan was not really designed to feed chain and warp directly into a hawser hole - rather into a locker...

Michael

[/ QUOTE ]

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 haswer.

Regarding the 'drop', you will need to have at least 500mm if using 6 or 7mm chains onto Octplait, a bit more if using 3 strands. Add 200mm extra depth for each mm increase in chain size. This is a ruff guide only. Shallow anchor lockers are a great cause of grief with Auto rope to chain winches. May pay to check this out before chucking the bucks at a winch.

Ships cat - Yes you are lucky /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif especially if you had to deal with me /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Shuggy - I have not graded you as annoying just yet /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif but try to tell me my job using numbers without any thought about the real life situation and I'm sure you maybe re-classified quite quickly /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Had a great one a few weeks back. Enginneer specified 10mm chain for a 30fter. When told nicely it was a cock-up up he proceeded to explain to us the numbers said a boat weighing 1.5 tonnes needed a break load of that times 3 for a safety margin hence the 5t break of 10mm was required. 'Dumbarse' as he quickly became called 'sort of' forgot the boat sits in water and was not suspended by the chain..... Errr... Hello..... He still sent the owner a bill for all the 'great work' he had done. The boat is now happily anchored on 7mm.
 
How is it that engineers get to specify the fit out of yachts in Auckland? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I do know of some very good naval architects/designers who were once engineers but don't carry those spots now (and indeed a couple who were originally architects too).

John
 
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