Chain Versus Rope Scope ?

[s/v Jedi]

Let's see...

1. y'all have sissy anchors. You need bigger and heavier ones

2. those who can't carry the weight at the bow have unsuitable boats for cruising. Prolly not blue water rated either

3. those who talk about chafing gear for rope rodes have missed my post about rope vaporizing in hurricane conditions. Trying to use chafing gear is like calling for help when the Borg come to assimilate you... it's futile

4. time for the Jedi anchoring rule again: in 99% of all situations you must anchor using just one anchor. If you drag with one anchor in more than 1% of all situations then go back to point one


















Nick.

[NorthPacific]

Finally, to answer the query about what gear is appropriate for South Pacific anchoring with a 35 foot boat: Insatiable I was 36' and about 10 tonnes heavy ship weight. We used a 44 lb Bruce on 275 feet of10 mm chain. We had a long 16mm nylon rode spliced to its end, but in 17 years and 86,000 miles (Mexico and South Pacific) we never needed the extra length. I hope that this data will help your decisions.

Sort of expected this. Did you ever need 275ft of chain? In a practical sense is it safe to use 'c' links to join chain? Once again thanks for sharing knowledge it helps.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by NorthPacific

Finally, to answer the query about what gear is appropriate for South Pacific anchoring with a 35 foot boat: Insatiable I was 36' and about 10 tonnes heavy ship weight. We used a 44 lb Bruce on 275 feet of10 mm chain. We had a long 16mm nylon rode spliced to its end, but in 17 years and 86,000 miles (Mexico and South Pacific) we never needed the extra length. I hope that this data will help your decisions.

Sort of expected this. Did you ever need 275ft of chain? In a practical sense is it safe to use 'c' links to join chain? Once again thanks for sharing knowledge it helps.

G'Day NP,

The nearest we ever came to running out of chain was in the lagoon at T'aaha
(sp?...those Tahitian names are devilish hard to remember). The depth was 85 feet and we used the lot. Moderate trade wind conditions as I recall, and it worked ok... still there in the morning!

The question about chain joiners has been much debated here on CF. We have used them for years without difficulties. The good ones have breaking strengths similar to G-40 chain IIRC, certainly ok for most chain other than so called hi-test. Some folks faint away at the thought, but so far we've been happy with them.

Cheers and have a good cruise... it's a wonderful part of the world, and we've been stuck in the S. Pacific Eddy since 1990.

Jim

[JoeFish]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

We do protect the boat from the chain by running it over a hefty roller and then through a bronze chain pipe as it falls to the bottom of the locker. And of course we always use a nylon snubber as well, with a backup if conditions are severe. And you know what? Functionally, an all-chain rode with a nylon snubber looks an awful lot like your composite rode, mate...

Jim,

How long is your snubber?

Will that length of snubber do as well as this?

Again I'm not saying that all chain doesn't have a place in the cruising world. I do however have a problem with blanket statements that ignore the downside to that as a global anchoring strategy.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by JoeFish

Jim,

How long is your snubber?

Will that length of snubber do as well as this?

Again I'm not saying that all chain doesn't have a place in the cruising world. I do however have a problem with blanket statements that ignore the downside to that as a global anchoring strategy.

10m looks pretty close. That´s what most people use.
Rode - Dynamic Behavior

Your link is meaningless.

You haven´t meantioned veering about the anchorage using rope, it´s usually pretty easy to spot the boats without chain in any kind of breeze, don´t you find that a bit annoying?

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by JoeFish

Jim,

How long is your snubber?

Will that length of snubber do as well as this?

Again I'm not saying that all chain doesn't have a place in the cruising world. I do however have a problem with blanket statements that ignore the downside to that as a global anchoring strategy.

JF,

Our working snubber is 10 m of 16 mm double braid nylon. Actual length deployed varies with situation. Much longer ones are on board for extreme conditions, and much shorter ones for breaking out stuck anchors or backing up in case of breakage.

I'm not sure what I am to take from the little graph you posted. The snubber that we use seems to reduce shock loading adequately. One must assume that the energy that is absorbed (per the graph) is expressed as heat. Not a worry in the submerged portion, but possibly awkward in the dry part. Nick (Jedi) keeps mentioning literally melting (vapourizing?) a snubber during a cyclone... we've never seen that and hope to never do so, but heat is not nylon's friend.

Finally, re your "problem with blanket statements that ignore the downside": I have a problem with blanket statements that ignore the proven possibility of rope rode chafing through from bottom features.

Cheers,

Jim

[NorthPacific]

14 months 2weeks and then ready or not we are off. Have the books and stuff but still no real idea of where we will end up. See a Dufour35 with a Canadian Flag it more than likely will be us.

Thanks for the advice Jim

Steve and Admiral

[marujo.sortudo]

It seems there's a lot of opinions here, so I thought I'd throw another in defense of nylon:

http://northpacificresearch.com/down..._selection.pdf

There's some sacred cows slaughtered .

Both chain and nylon have lots of positive attributes, and like so many things with boats, each sailor needs to decide what's appropriate for his boat, cruising grounds, etc. I do think we need to expand the discussion to think of what we're doing to the very bottoms we love to fish, snorkel, etc. Lots of Caribbean anchorages I've been to have had sea grass and coral utterly devastated by anchor chain. This was habitat for lots of beautiful (and tasty) creatures. Be careful where you anchor, and leave a clean wake.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by webejammin

We are hopeing to sail to the San Juan islands and Seattle this summer and wondered how deep your gunkholes are normally ?

The 15-60' is a good number, but most often you can find anchorage in 15-30 feet no problem. You can avoid the deep anchorages planning ahead for sure. It is a challenge at times in the PNW though.

[Gasman]

I'm not a full timer, so excuse my question.
What happens to the anchor position (hold), when the tide changes direction.
Doesn't the anchor have to flip over to offer support?

[cwyckham]

Originally Posted by Gasman

I'm not a full timer, so excuse my question.
What happens to the anchor position (hold), when the tide changes direction.
Doesn't the anchor have to flip over to offer support?

Yes. And some do it better than others.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Gasman

I'm not a full timer, so excuse my question.
What happens to the anchor position (hold), when the tide changes direction.
Doesn't the anchor have to flip over to offer support?

Anchors will usually remain buried and rotate round to the new position.
There is some risk the anchor will break out of the bottom as it rotates, but with the modern designs this very rarly happens,if the anchor is well set and the scope is appropriate.
The danforth design has gained a reputation for more often breaking out during rotation, so many people do not consider it a suitable main anchor. Other older designs are also more vulnerable. To combat this in areas where there is an expected change in the direction of pull (usually from a tide change) two anchors are sometimes set for different directions. This practice is getting less common as people switch to the better anchor designs which reset more reliably.

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by Gasman

I'm not a full timer, so excuse my question.
What happens to the anchor position (hold), when the tide changes direction.
Doesn't the anchor have to flip over to offer support?

Besides the other comments, "s/v Jedi" - Post 301 has some photos of anchors with bent stanks. This can happen when a thoroughly "buried' or stuck anchor is faced with a reversing current and the boat changes its direction. The anchor rode now pulls on the anchor at an angle perpendicular to the original anchor set direction. . . and the shank bends. This is a problem with the thinner, lighter anchors.

Amongst the heavy anchors (cast or welded), direction reversal is a problem if the sea floor is comprised of some loose material like sand or gravel. Then the anchor is pulled free from it previous "set" direction and has to "re-set" - - hopefully. If not, then you can have the frantic, middle of the night, naked folks on deck running around trying to avoid hitting other boats and get their anchor to set again.

How well the various anchors accomplish this is why there are so many different types of anchor design and opinions about what specific anchor is "best."

Anchoring in rocks or boulders or fields of coral can also pose a problem when wind or currents reverse and your anchor twists loose only to drop into a crevice or hole between rocks/coral. Then the anchor is "stuck" and cannot be retrieved when it comes time to weigh anchor and leave for your next destination.

Anchoring techniques are well laid out in various books on the subject along with a variety of multi-anchor schemes for places with reversing currents or winds.

[wolfenzee]

Originally Posted by Gasman

I'm not a full timer, so excuse my question.
What happens to the anchor position (hold), when the tide changes direction.
Doesn't the anchor have to flip over to offer support?

It depends on how much current you have as well as which effects your boat more, wind or current

[zeehag]

when tides change, both rope and chain make a circle. if you use a lot of chain, your shank will not be affected as soon as with rope. rope will lift the shank and the flukes will pop out of the mud/sand/silt, and you will have a walkabout boat in short order as there is not enough weight to rope to keep it on th sea floor in a positive fashion.