Manual versus windlass anchors

[Chris R]

I am used to a electric anchor windlass but the boat I am considering does not have one
I have read that deploying and retrieving an anchor by hand on a 10 m yacht can be hard work and possibly dangerous

all views appreciated please

thanks
chris

 

[lw395]

It will be hard work if you use a great deal of heavy chain and like to anchor in deep water.
It's quite easy if you use a sensible amount of chain and some rope.

It can be hazardous doing anything with heavy weights. People have also done serious damage with windlasses.
It can be dangerous pratting about lifting a heavy anchor and chain slowly if your boat is out of control in a confined space while you do so.
If you are short/singlehanded, any action you can't carry out from the steering position carries a risk. If you have adequate crew, manually anchoring from the foredeck is no more risk than many other things.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Leaving aside safety considerations, if you're used to the electric windlass you'll probably find it a complete PITA going 'back to basics' and may find it puts you off anchoring at all, or properly, especially if resetting a few times is needed. If it's the right boat then consider budgeting to add the windlass and dedicated battery.

 

[Bobc]

I'd never go back to doing it manually.

 

[jac]

TO add to LW395 - depends on your anchor and the conditions as well.

If you're using a modern lightweight anchor, shortish scope of mixed chain and rope in light conditions then it's fine, especially if it neatly stows on your roller. Think a lunch time stop over the last couple of weeks.
If you have a slightly over sized heavy traditional anchor that needs to be then manoeuvred from stem head and you're anchoring / raising anchor in a F7 then it will be.

 

[prv]

If it's the right boat then consider budgeting to add the windlass and dedicated battery.

Agree except that an extra battery is unlikely to be needed on a 33’ boat.

(Specifically, agree with “consider”. Whether it’s worth it or not depends on your use and how easy you’d find the installation. Personally I would, but I anchor often and am not worried by the work involved in fitting.)

Pete

 

[duncan99210]

I have a small boat in UK (18 ft) with a light anchor, small quantity of chain and loads of rope. It’s still a pain to recover compared to the boat in Greece which is all chain but has an windlass. For anything much bigger than the UK boat, I’d budget for a windlass. Not because it dangerous but because it’s easy: as Scalia says, it’ll therefore encourage you to haul and reset if you’re at all uncertain about the set of the anchor.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Agree except that an extra battery is unlikely to be needed on a 33’ boat.

(Specifically, agree with “consider”. Whether it’s worth it or not depends on your use and how easy you’d find the installation. Personally I would, but I anchor often and am not worried by the work involved in fitting.)

Pete

Dedicated battery is certainly not 'needed' maybe but may be a 'better' solution. Easier to wire with only short runs of fat cable to the windlass, and minimal voltage drop.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

I'd never go back to doing it manually.

Me neither!

 

[LadyInBed]

If you have adequate crew, manually anchoring from the foredeck is no more risk than many other things.

Quite right, get some other fit bugger to heave it up!

Deployment by hand is no issue as gravity does the job and you can 'hand over hand ' the chain. On a manual or one way electric windlass you can control deployment with the clutch. A two way electric windlass can be operated from the cockpit.
As said, getting the chain up by hand is ok if you are fit or have someone in the cockpit to apply some engine power in blowy conditions. The problem with a manual windlass as I see it is that it is very slow, thats ok whilst the anchor is still on the bottom, but when it is suspended, the boat can just drift unless you either have another person to drive the boat or you suspend retrieval to go back to the cockpit and set sail or engine to drive the boat under autohelm whilst you go back to the bow to finish the job. You could say that the same applies with an electric winch operated at the bow, but the difference is that the chain is retrieved much quicker, so less time to drift.

 

[jwilson]

I am quite sure I could raise my 15 Kg anchor plus 65 Kg of 10mm chain by hand if I really, really had to. I'd use every possible help from sails, engine etc., and might even resort to assistance from a line led to a sheet winch or a block and tackle to break it out if difficult. It's called seamanship.

When I was 25 I know I could lift and carry a near 100 Kg weight piece of equipment used at work, though usually it was a two-man job, or four if others around. But then not many years later I once failed to break out a small Danforth anchor with 3M 6mm chain and nylon warp, after it was really well dug into blue mud. Two boats had hung on it off a lee shore through a few hours of 40 knots - mine and another boat whose anchor had dragged. It took a substantial workboat with a big engine to finally break it out, with a substantially bent shank.

But pressing a button to have almost a ton of pull on my current 10mm chain is really so much easier, as I'm 3 times that age. All depends if an anchor is going to be used much and where, and what the anchor and chain is. I am by the way now a fan of Fortress anchors and nylon warp for many uses, if you can afford it. When they came out I thought "....how silly - a lightweight anchor", but for sand and mud they work remarkably well. As an all-purpose anchor however they are not necessarily ideal.

 

[prv]

Dedicated battery is certainly not 'needed' maybe but may be a 'better' solution. Easier to wire with only short runs of fat cable to the windlass, and minimal voltage drop.

But you have to find somewhere in the forepeak to keep the battery. And in a boat of moderate length, unless you keep the house batteries at the transom, the wiring is short enough that the cables don't need to be unduly large for acceptable volt-drop. You need to run cables from the house bank to the bow anyway, and the work of doing so doesn't change all that much with say 25mm² cable over 6mm². If you need to loop into and out of wherever you've stashed the battery, instead of going straight to the windlass, that probably more than makes up for any difference in effort (depending on your boat's exact fitout).

As boats get bigger, the tradeoffs reverse - bigger windlasses (and even more so, bow thrusters) draw more current, wiring runs are longer needing larger cables to reduce drop, there's more likely to be enough room to stash the battery in the forepeak without getting in the way. The cables for a direct run to a big consumer a big boat's length away may well work out more expensive in copper than the extra battery. It's the right solution for larger boats.

But at 33'? Most likely the simple solution is more appropriate.

Pete

 

[Catalina36]

Leaving aside the physical advantages of a power windlass over hand recovery, the windlass can be set up so that you can operate it (up or down) from the helm, where you have full control of throttle, gears, wheel/tiller and full information about depth and COG/SOG. For single-handed use that's very useful but even with a crew it saves all the hollering and hand signals. I'd say if you like the boat then buy it but allow for the cost of fitting a windlass.

 

[Rappey]

Not all Manual windlasses are the same. Some are painfully slow.
I have a sl seatiger. Twin speed so can pull in chain at a decent speed, and very powerful.
I don't anchor often as I always seem to be the one who gets his anchor stuck whilst everyone else around me retrieves and are long gone. ??
Electric would be nice , but so is a simpson lawrence ?

 

[PetiteFleur]

I have wanted an electric windlass for some time but the cost and fitting puts me off as I have a limited budget for boating now. When we raise the anchor, my wife motors gently and I haul the anchor by hand, under my direction and never had a problem but never had to do it in difficult conditions. I do have a manual windlass but it is very slow and quicker by hand - 10m boat, 10mm chain and 12.5kg Manson Supreme anchor.

 

[TLouth7]

I don't have a windlass on my Sigma 33. I have a CQR and mixed rode. Getting the anchor off the bow roller, through the pulpit and into the locker is definitely the hardest bit.

 

[lw395]

I don't have a windlass on my Sigma 33. I have a CQR and mixed rode. Getting the anchor off the bow roller, through the pulpit and into the locker is definitely the hardest bit.

Agreed, but that bit is in fact optional unless you're racing.

 

[fredrussell]

I have a manual windlass of the horizontal variety. It’s very good. The winch handle socket is offset and for some reason this makes things much easier when winding in anchor. An amazing piece of kit really. This on a 31ft boat, 25m of 8mm chain, new gen anchor.

 

[doug748]

I am used to a electric anchor windlass but the boat I am considering does not have one
I have read that deploying and retrieving an anchor by hand on a 10 m yacht can be hard work and possibly dangerous

all views appreciated please

thanks
chris

I think at 10m you are at the crossroads, if you have gear like PetiteFleur then you will probably want an electric job whatever your age and state of health. However if your chain is 8mm and the anchor c10kg then it is optional... if you are at least an average physical specimen with no acute health worries. It would probably do you good.

I would want a manual windlass though.

As an old geezer with a 10m boat and the above set up, I can reveal that I seldom have to use even the manual windlass. Though it becomes necessary with over 15kts of wind and newer anchors can be very sticky. Nothing would provoke me to use less than a full/good length of chain on this size of boat.

I singlehand and, once broken out, find bringing the chain to the stemhead is very quick by hand and has a lot of advantages over winches manual or electric.

.

 

[bikedaft]

Well, i'm going to go against the flow here ☺ we have a SL electric windlass - but i find it excruciatingly slow, especially single handed, so haul chain up by hand (8mm) often with engine in tickover forwards, if any wind. Sure I'll often leave anchor hanging off bow, just off the bottom, until in clear water, but not come to any abrupt halts yet...