Glow in the dark and reflective anchor chain?

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DrCS

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Hello,
At the end of last season I had an unfortunate event were someone picked up my anchor, apparently a drunken "professional" skipper who to cut a long story short crashed on the marina wall damaging his boat and giving me the most anxious 30 minutes of my life ( I sustained no damage, if you were in Ithaka at the time you'd know of the event).

I did a lot of research since then on potential solutions to allow people to visualize were anchors and lines are set!. anchor buoys? selfish, traffic impeding and dangerous at night say some on another thread and unacceptable in a marina. Then what....

So I was thinking, what if we painted the anchor chains with glow in the dark and reflective paint , potentially in combination with dropping a diving light (with a line to retrieve) under the boat, shouldn't that allow people to "see" the anchor line? I tried this with success on a small piece of chain, yet there are no paints designed for this function. Is there safe for underwater marine applications glow in the dark paint that can survive going through a windlass for at least a couple of seasons?
Any thoughts?
 
Considering painting any anchor chain, then most galvanizers would baulk at re-galvanizing a fully painted chain.
Many refuse to do this if there's any paint, as removal of the paint brings the cost of the operation into the realms of being more cost effective to buy new chain.

That's not much help answering the question, but a point to watch out for.
 
Paint might work in the Med, but not in Essex. My solution is to have a pipe included with the chain and for a pump to drive air down, thus releasing bubbles which would mark the position at the surface.
 
MM5AHO said:
Considering painting any anchor chain, then most galvanizers would baulk at re-galvanizing a fully painted chain.
Many refuse to do this if there's any paint, as removal of the paint brings the cost of the operation into the realms of being more cost effective to buy new chain.

That's not much help answering the question, but a point to watch out for.
Click to expand...

If and when I had my anchor chain re galvanized I tied my chain to the back of my car and drove several kilometers down a dirt/gravel road. Very effective at removing crud. paint and most rust.
 
Another idea might be mixing glow in the dark powder to some transparent paint or resin: I bought some on ebay (very cheap) mixed it with glue and used it for the boat watch hands. Despite what they say (the glow should last approximately 12 hours for the green powder), it faints more quickly; same happens with the wichard safety tether hook with the luminescent handle, or with the bearing compass: if one shines a torch at them then they make a lot of glow during some minutes, but gradually fade out.

Perhaps they should make in glow matrerial those coloured rubber inserts which are used to mark chain length :)
 
DrCS said:
Hello,
At the end of last season I had an unfortunate event were someone picked up my anchor, apparently a drunken "professional" skipper who to cut a long story short crashed on the marina wall damaging his boat and giving me the most anxious 30 minutes of my life ( I sustained no damage, if you were in Ithaka at the time you'd know of the event).

I did a lot of research since then on potential solutions to allow people to visualize were anchors and lines are set!. anchor buoys? selfish, traffic impeding and dangerous at night say some on another thread and unacceptable in a marina. Then what....

So I was thinking, what if we painted the anchor chains with glow in the dark and reflective paint , potentially in combination with dropping a diving light (with a line to retrieve) under the boat, shouldn't that allow people to "see" the anchor line? I tried this with success on a small piece of chain, yet there are no paints designed for this function. Is there safe for underwater marine applications glow in the dark paint that can survive going through a windlass for at least a couple of seasons?
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

As far as I know most glow in the dark paints need exposure to sun light to "charge up" so if you keep your chain/anchor line in a dark anchor locker you may be disappointed.

I once did some back engraved labels for my cabin with glow in the dark paint in the lettering and it did not work as there was very little direct exposure to sun light.
 
Paint on chain doesn't last very long at all, even if any glow in the dark properties could be seen from the surface. We mark the chain at five and ten metre intervals at the start of the season. By week four, most of the paint on the first 40 metres has been removed by the action of the winch. Still do it, because it makes the distance markers marginally easier to spot...
Don't forget as well that water is actually quite an effective blocker of light. Whilst you might be able to see a submersible strobe at a few metres depth, you won't be able to see any glow in the dark paint. From that, I'd say the best bet to mark an anchor would be a divers strobe: fasten it to the anchor before dropping it with a small float to keep it off the bottom and in clear water you might be able to see it in the dark.
Marking the chain or anchor won't help much in the sort of incident the OP describes, as the type of miscreant won't be looking to avoid your chain in the first place. You could have deployed a marker buoy, stood on the bow and shouted at him and I'm prepared to bet he would still have followed the course of action that he did because a) he was drunk, b) he knows much better than you where your anchor is and c) he was is a boat of such a size as it didn't matter to him what was happening to a smaller boat.
 
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TQA said:
I have had something similar happen a couple of times. Buoyed the bitter end and dropped it Reanchored using the second anchor and chain. Picked up the one I dropped in daylight. .
Click to expand...

In my case the guy who picked up my anchor put his 5 times heavier than mine boat in full reverse, my 40m of chain were all out of the water. A strong gust then pushed him towards the wall of the port were he crashed but as he was slowly but surely drigting he was causing me to turn with my stern port side nearly hitting the key multiple times. All I could do was slowly release chain 1 inch before hitting untill he eventually crashed, a real skipper jumped on board his boat taking over helping him tie up were he crashed and me to pick up my anchor that was now laying over the anchor of about 4 other boats... He had 3 chunks about 1 inch deep 4inch diameter missing from his hull at the end of this!

Anyway, enough about that. It seems the paint is not going to be a solution, the rope might, but I doubt it will work either, I liked the divers strobe idea especially since I have one I can use to test. But that would only mark the anchor on the chain, and it would have to remain on as there will be no control on the boat for it, but minor issue with li-ion batteries that are dirt cheap now
 
Electroluminescent wire would look quite cool. Not sure it would survive the windlass so I suppose some kind of slipknot as a release down in the water.

Use one of those solar garden lamp units to keep it charged up.
 
Would it not be simpler to have a single bright light at the anchor? Any fool can see where the chain is going, so it is the anchor position that usually concerns people.
 
I think the easiest way to power it would be a battery with terminals on the anchor that you can connect when the anchor is in it's position on the boat. Powering by the movement of the chain would require submerged electro-mechanical parts and would make it not robust and probably expensive. Even piezoelectric stuff don't survive marine environment I don't think.

But the key factor here is making the anchor visible, if the anchor is visible, then even if you have to place recharged batteries before droping anchor is not an issue as one can learn to do it as part of mooring preparations.

I have acquired a diver's light rated at 100m, with 2 1680 batteries in series, it looks plenty bright for the task, I will send pictures whenever I get a chance to get to my boat again (we are about 900 miles apart unfortunately)
 
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