Electric windlass issues

[eddystone]

Prior to launching a newly acquired 32' boat I had an electric windlass professionally fitted. Due to circumstances the whole installation was specced and fitted by the shipwright ("please fit me an appropriate electric windlass" as opposed to "I have acquired all these parts please fit them for me" {"you know this will all work do you because its your choice and it's not my responsibility if it doesn't"}) - . The installation is neat enough and well executed but I suspect the boat is at the very top end of the size range for that windlass. As it happened I used it for the first time this weekend and had a couple of issues which, due to lack of experience with these things, cannot judge whether shortcomings in the installation or just inherent problems with electric windlasses. Actually, not so bothered about windlass power because after all the idea is to lift it not drag it out; because I hadn't marked the chain I unnecessarily let out the whole 30 metres and when I tried to pull it back in, the chain/anchorplait splice, which went out OK, jammed on the windlass and also wouldn't go through the hawse pipe; in the end managed to lift the splice off the windlass and drag it back through the hawse pipe by pulling from the chain locker side. Secondly, when lifting the chain when most of it was lifted it tended to jam because the chain was piling up in the locker preventing it from dropping (the locker is quite shallow)

My instinct is that given the shallow chain locker, the second issue is unavoidable, i.e. there is no way of getting a better drop, but the problem of the chain/rope splice could have been foreseen. Am I mistaken? The only obvious solution (other than not anchoring where I need more than 30 metres and manually dragging the splice back down through the hawse pipe when I do) is to add maybe another 10 metres of chain to replace the rope and keep an anchor warp separate to shackle on when needed.

Irony is I probably wouldn't have discovered these issues had I done what I should have done and marked distances on the chain with paint!

 

[Norman_E]

Post a photo of the installation. Others may then be able to suggest how to overcome the problem. With a shallow chain locker and the tendency of chain to pile up in a steep sided cone that issue is hard to avoid though sometimes it helps if there is a sloping floor to the locker, or even a traffic cone shape below the hawse pipe. Anchorplait is often too light to drop through a hawsepipe where the hole is a small one which heavy chain will pass quite easily.. Some photos might give others on here an idea how you might improve matters

 

[Tranona]

Little you can do about the shallow anchor locker. You just have to devise a way of stopping the hauling and knocking the chain down in the locker.

You maybe have the wrong rope or wrong splice for your gypsy. 3 strand and a long splice forward into the chain rather than a back splice is what works on my Lofrans. You can find instructions on how to do it on the Jimmy Green site. There is a similar splice for multiplait, but some windlasses specify 3 strand only. If you regularly require more than 30m for anchoring probably better to have more chain so you only use rope as backup. I have 50m chain and 30m rope.

 

[prv]

If you regularly require more than 30m for anchoring probably better to have more chain so you only use rope as backup.

Depends on the boat - I'm about to go the opposite way having discovered that my preferred all-chain option badly upsets the trim.

I wonder whether the OP has a rope/chain gypsy, or a chain-only one?

Pete

 

[eddystone]

Thanks all.
I will take some photos when I go down at the weekend; I'm not sure if it's 3 strand or anchorplait with the long splice like the one on the jimmy green site. To be honest I didn't really log whether the problem was with the gypsy or the bulk of the splice jamming in the hawsepipe making it jump on the gypsy. I think a key driver for the shipwright was limiting weight in the ends to maintain trim hence recommendation to have just 30m chain and the rest rope; I would need to check the capacity of the windlass to work with chain and rope - I sort of assumed that would be the case.