Question: [edited for brevity] We have a horizontal windlass with a chain wildcat on one side and a rope drum on the other. How can we handle our hybrid secondary anchor rode made up of 50 meters of chain and 40 meters of rope with this set up?
Answer: This is the big problem with hybrid anchor rodes and I have never really seen a good solution to it. Maxwell makes windlasses with special wildcats that can handle both chain and rode. I have never used one, but I would worry about chafe on the rope, particularly at the vulnerable rope to chain splice. Also, I believe that they only make them in smaller sizes.
Our answer on Morgan’s Cloud is to use a secondary anchor rode (our primary is all chain) that is all rope, except for six feet of chain at the anchor that does not quite reach the rope drum when the secondary anchor is stowed on its roller.
OK, I can hear the howls now, “not enough chain, not enough chain”. And it’s true that most rules of thumb state something like “the minimum chain length should be twice the length of the boat” or some such. But, as so often happens in offshore sailing, I suspect the author of this rule has never tried to deal with the actuality on a boat of over say 35 feet. Thumbs is in fact what you may lose, along with some fingers too, trying to deal with such a set up.
The fact is that we anchored literally hundreds of times without problems with just our secondary rope rode and just six feet of chain in the high latitudes back in the days when we had a CQR primary anchor on our chain primary rode, which was about as much use as a concrete block once we got north of Newfoundland.
One of the reasons that people suggest more chain is that they believe that the weight of the chain will improve the angle of pull to the anchor. But in fact, some very interesting engineering data that we received from a German friend shows conclusively that this benefit is small at best, and just plain non-existent once the wind gets to gale force, since even a 300 foot all chain rode is pulled just about completely straight at that wind speed.
As to how to store the secondary rode: We have our 300 foot (90 meter) rode in two pieces with splices and thimbles in all four ends. It is stowed flaked—never coiled, since it causes tangles—in two bags. One bag stays lashed down on the foredeck (as long as we are not going offshore) and the other can be dragged forward and shackled on if required.
I would be the first to admit that this set up is not super-elegant, but it does work. Although, since getting our 55kg SPADE primary anchor 10 years ago, we have very rarely had any need for a secondary anchor anyway.
Does anyone have a better answer to this difficult question? Is so, please leave a comment.
Matt Marsh September 7, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Do I have a better answer? No. I really have no idea how one would safely transfer a rode across the windlass with 50 metres of heavy chain still hanging off the bow.
But this is an anchor post, and boaters can’t resist chiming in on an anchor post
As John rightly points out, any supposed caternary benefits that you might get with heavy chain are nullified when the wind picks up and the rode is taut. IMHO, one is often better off using a light, strong rode and putting the weight in the anchor itself: 100 kg of anchor plus 50 kg of rope or wire cable rode ought to hold better than 50 kg of anchor plus 100 kg of heavy chain. Chain is, of course, still needed for chafe resistance in the first few feet of rode… but the best solution I can think of, from an ease of handling standpoint, is to just not mix materials within any one anchor rode.
John September 8, 2010 at 7:48 am
Hi Matt,
I think you are absolutely right. Put the weight in the anchor, not the rode. Steve & Linda Dashew have had very good results using schedule 70 3/8″ high tensile chain and massive (200 lb) anchors on their 65-80 foot boats.
Nick Kats September 8, 2010 at 7:02 am
Hi John
My anchor rode setup is like yours. One is all chain. The backup is rope with a little chain.
Most anchor rodes need a lot of space to coil down/stow away. I didn’t have room for this & have only one thru-deck pipe which is dedicated to the chain.
I needed a 2nd anchor rode that was instantly deployable. Here is how I solved the problem.
To minimize stowage I use Octoplait (UK name) or Multiplait (US name… I think..). The stowage space required is 1/3 that of equivalent 3 ply nylon. My Octoplait rode is 400′ and 7/8″ diameter. The bag I store it in, at 5′ long and 10 inches diameter, easily accomodates this. Huge savings in space.
Like you I store this rode in a bag. My bag’s narrow diameter of 10 inches makes tangling within the bag unlikely, and it has not happened to me. The bag is open mesh for drainage. Its mouth has a stainless steel wire hoop sewn in to hold it open, which facilitates bagging the rode by myself.
This design comes straight from Beth & Evans Starzinger’s website, with photos.
In addition, the bag has a hole in the bottom. I keep 2 feet of the tail end of the rode hanging out of this hole, and can pull out all I want. This allows me to set up the rode properly before deployment. It also allows me to cleat off the rode before deploying, to prevent loss.
I keep the bag below & bring/stow it on the foredeck as needed.
This is an efficient way to instantly deploy rode.
Nick Kats
Ireland
John September 8, 2010 at 7:28 am
Hi Nick,
Great stuff, thanks. Your system sounds very like ours, only a bit better. I like the narrow bag idea, although ours has never tangled in wider bags.
Very good point on using a soft plat rope to reduce size.
David Nutt September 8, 2010 at 10:54 am
I am an advocate of the big anchor. On Danza, a 60′ ketch at around 22 tons we switched from a 50kg Bruce (which worked really well in our 5 year circumnavigation) to a 55kg Rocna when we headed to Greenland this past summer. We carry 90 meters of 12mm G4 chain. In the last 47,000 miles of sailing and innumerable anchorings I have yet to use two anchors. The Rocna was outstanding in the heavy kelp anchorages in Greenland. The only time it dragged was during a 180 degree wind shift on a classic steep slope anchorage. When reset it held without fail.
Our second anchor is all 7/8″ rode stored in a coil and now I am going to follow the advice of some of the above comments. Thanks.
John September 9, 2010 at 8:31 am
Hi David,
I’m with you on that: One huge anchor on chain with a good long snubber.
David Head September 8, 2010 at 11:38 am
Our heavy Saga 40 has a combo of chain and rope. The mention of a ‘v’ grooved chain gypsy does scare me. On another boat I was all too aware of the incredible crush pressure on the fibres of the Octoplait when the rode was under even moderate load. We never did have any problem with the splice. Our answer is a simple chain hook on a tail of suitable strength / length Octoplait rope. We recover enough rope on the plain drum windlass to get the chain over the deck then slot the chain hook over the chain. The tail is lead back over the chain gypsy to either a winch or purchase allowing a good direct pull. Pressure released gradually on the rope drum will leave the pressure on the chain and flying chain hook. Hauling this in drags the chain over the gypsy until fully engaged in the slots whereupon the windlas can again be used to recover the remaining rode. Sounds more complicated here than in practice. We also use the flying chain hook and tail threaded through a rubber chain snubber to reduce noise, and act as a shock absorber. ‘Simples’ as the Meercat says!
Victor Raymond September 8, 2010 at 1:26 pm
I also have a horizontal windlass. They way I handle this situation is fairly straightforward but requires a short snubber. After the rope rode is retrieved and the chain now is at the windlass, then I put a snubber on the chain so it won’t slip back into the sea. Then I remove the rope from the rope drum and put the chain in the wildcat drum. The main goal is to get enough chain onboard to reach the wildcat. If I do everything correctly I usually have one or two links to slip into the wildcat. If somehow I am short I can run the rope back to a winch to give me the few inches I need to get a few links in the wildcat.
Donal Philby September 8, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Brent Swain, designer of numerous steel “origami” boats recommends using a reel on deck that can be filled with hybrid rope/chain/wire that can be retrieved by hand crank, servo motor or hydraulics. Keeps the slime, mud and critters on deck, and eliminates all the issues mentioned above.
Here is a photo from a site with many more photos:
http://origamiboats.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=15971947
The windlass design is in his boatbuilding manual, only one of many cheap, strong, sensible ideas therein. I don’t have such a windlass, but am seriously considering one for our wooden boat, especially if we switch out of all chain for the primary.
John September 9, 2010 at 8:25 am
Thanks to all for all the great ideas, much to think about.
I think that on balance, and keeping in mind that the reader who asked the original question already has an all chain primary rode inhabiting the chain wildcat, that we would stick with our original recommendation in the post.
That is dispensing with the hybrid secondary (kedge) rode and going to an all rope rode with just 2 meters or so of chain. Said rode to be kept flaked in a bag.
Having said that, this is just one way to go and all the ideas above have their strengths and weaknesses. That’s boats: compromises, compromises!
Neil McCubbin September 14, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Two issues
On the value of chain as a catenary, I have seen good mathematics, (van Doorn in Oceanography and Seamanship) and have first hand experience to prove that the catenary value of chain is approximately zero at over about 50 knots wind.
Despite the poor catenary value in extreme conditions, we like a good chunk of chain to guard against chafe on the sea floor.
We have 40 metres chain with 180 m 3/4″ nylon spliced to it.
We winch in the nylon with Andersen 52 halyard winch, and the chain with our manual SL 555 windlass.
When the chain comes aboard, we snub with a stainless steel chain hook, and have about 4 feet of loose chain to safely pass over the windlass.
Even with an electric windlass, much of the rope part can be done easily with a halyard winch, making transfer of chain to the gypsy easy and safe.
Craig Smith September 18, 2010 at 3:01 pm
On catenary. It seems the enlightened readers of your blog are a select audience John, well done. In any case if anyone is interested this article attempts to separate some of the myth from the reason:
http://www.petersmith.net.nz/boat-anchors/catenary.php
Nick Kats September 19, 2010 at 5:53 am
Just want to say that this link Craig offers goes to a collection of articles on the Rocna anchor website. These articles are by far the best I have seen on all aspects of anchoring. I cannot recommend these highly enough.
Nick
Gary Schwarzman October 1, 2010 at 3:17 pm
We use a single windlass to handle either of two anchors, each of which is on a rope-chain rode. The windlass is an Ideal #3 vertical capstan, which has a rope drum. The rope and chain are joined by a back splice; the splice passes smoothly.
The “ah-ha” moment was when I discovered that two wraps on the drum will serve both the rope and the chain quite well. You just keep tailing, and the windlass keeps delivering rode. I had expected to have to weld lugs onto the drum to provide a better grip for the chain, but this was not necessary.
There are some caveats:
1. The size of the chain is critical. It needs to be small enough to be flexible, but large enough to strip off without binding. 3/8-inch proof coil works well with this drum, but 3/8-inch BBB tends to bind.
2. Wrapping chain around a rope drum certainly is not approved and might be considered unsafe. Handling that chain requires care and attention to ensure that the chain is stripping, falls clear, etc. But there are many operations on a boat that require care and attention to be performed safely.
Having worked the kinks out of the system and “learned the moves”, I find it a totally successful way to take in two rope-chain rodes.
peter loveridge December 23, 2010 at 4:30 pm
As you know, we have a small (30ft) boat. We have 100 feet of 1/4HT chain on a nominally 35lb stainless copy of a CQR, it actually weighs nearly 45. Our windlass is the smallest Simpson Lawrence, has a combined rope chain gypsy. It has never jammed, it occasionally jumps a little at the splice. We were unfortunate enough to experience a microburst in Florida, we survived 10 minutes of 100 knot winds without dragging or anything breaking.
Neil McCubbin December 23, 2010 at 6:57 pm
We have been using mixed chain/nylon rodes for years.
We have a few lengths of 5/8″ nylon with a chain hook spliced into one end. Good steel ones are available in truck supply shops, but now SS ones are not too expensive, so we use them.
We have a manual SL 555 windlass.
Nowadays, we pull in the 3/4″ rode with a halyard windlass on the mast, because it is easier than the anchor windlass. When the end of the chain is near the splice, we hook on to the chain forward, and tie it off, put the slack chain on the gyspy and crank it in, taking the hook off once tension is off it.
This would work just as well with an electric windlass, using the halyard winch only for the few feet to get slack in the chain.
It is good to have at least one chain hook to match your chain with about 30 ft of line on it, and one with about 10 ft. This allows using a halyard winch if the anchor windlass fails. Particularly important with electric models.
John December 23, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Hi Gary, Peter and Neil,
As I said in the comment above, if it works for you…
Having said that, these systems sound a bit complex to me, particularly on a dark night in a raging blow. So, we still like our all chain rode that self-stows without a hitch or any manual intervention.
Ric December 24, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Has anyone tried using firehose or serving over chain? I am wondering if that would let it pass over a rope drum more smoothly. We have an odd setup where our secondary has 30′ of chain, then 150′ of rode, then 15′ of 7/16″ HT chain, then another 150′ of rode and a final 30′ of chain. (The issue is that the rode runs down an internal chute and without the chain it’d chafe in a heartbeat). The line retrieval is no problem, but the chain doesn’t want to roll over the drum very nicely – tends to grab and boink and growl.
John December 25, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Hi Ric,
Sounds pretty complicated. If it were me, I think I would go to a rope rode stored in bags with a short chain leader for the secondary as detailed in this post. If you have a good best bower (primary) like a Rocna or SPADE, you won’t use the secondary much anyway; at least that has been our experience.
Have a Merry one.
Kettlewell February 28, 2011 at 4:15 pm
Bump on an old thread. I’m of the anchor line and short length of chain in a bag school for the secondary anchor. In general, I pull up the second anchor first and having it mostly line means I can use a cockpit winch instead of the windlass if it is more convenient, but in general I simply pull the boat up to the anchor or motor over it if it is too windy. With a short length of chain that doesn’t reach the deck it is easy to cleat the line off short and let the boat drift back on the short-scoped anchor to help pull it out.
Ben March 2, 2011 at 6:21 pm
Much easier to deploy the second anchor from a dinghy if it only has a short length of chain, just watch the chafe if you have it down for a few days, Ideally serve the rope around the thimble. I have got away with a couple of meters of chain.
But I now have a decent primary on all chain, and love it, I hardly use the second anchor any more…
I use a chain pawl on my bow roller to help get the chain onboard, this works brilliantly on smaller vessels, considerably increasing safety and taking the load off my back.