Anchor rode marking

M

Moxieabs

Member
As I watch the snow melting, I'm asking myself what would be a good method to mark my 125' 1/4" chain rode to know how much is out other than counting the links. :| At the moment I do not have a windlass, :sad but obviously it is a top priority! Otherwise, I may develope an upper body structure similar to the governor of California. :smiled Anyone have some suggestions?
 
Moxieabs- There are comercially made anchor rode markers which attach to the chain or three-strand twisted line. They come in colored sets so that each one is a diferent color and has the distance out marked on it. Nine ribbons, 30-300 ft. $5.99 at your friendly West Marine candy store. Joe.
 
I have 600 feet of twisted nylon rode that I have marked every 50 feet, the 50 foot marks are 1 strand of black yarn at 50 and 350, two strands of black yarn at 150 and 450, and three strands at 550. At 100 and 400 feet is one strand of orange, at 200 and 500 is 2 strands of orange, and 300 feet has three strands of orange. I have used yarn on many a coho fly and have never lost it, so I figured it would last on an anchor rode, so far it has not come unraveled. It is also cheap, and highly visible against the white nylon rope.
 
Moxieabs I was unable to use the standard type markers for my anchor rode (not 3 strand) so I used green, red, and yellow heat shrink tubing and wrote in black marker the length at each spot.

The stuff is pretty tough and think it would work fine with chain, bigger problem might be finding it. In Portland/Beaverton area Norvac carries the stuff from 2.5" down to 1/16" diameter in at least 10 colors.

stevej
 
So far my take on chain and rode marking is that there is not a conventional method (exception would be the tags from WM) or a conventional code for color or depth.

Any good ideas. For chain, I ma thinking red, white and blue paint. Maybe the same for the rode, or use some kind of nylon thread?

Ideas?

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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hardee":2nsqj1kx said:
So far my take on chain and rode marking is that there is not a conventional method (exception would be the tags from WM) or a conventional code for color or depth.

Any good ideas. For chain, I ma thinking red, white and blue paint. Maybe the same for the rode, or use ... (snip)
Click to expand...

Consider lengths of adhesive lined shrink tubing ... just the length of a link, maybe three in a row for each mark. Sized to fit over the shackle.
 
All good ideas, you may want to cut 80 ft of chain off and use 40 attached to your rope rode however. C Dory's don't need all chain rode as some big boats use.
Retrieving even 60-80 ft of chain without a windlass is no fun
Our windlass is one of the top 1 or 2 items we put aboard.
Forget what you read in boating books about 7-1 scope it is rarely possible in today's crowded anchorages. Go a size bigger on your anchor (or two sizes) and relax with 3-1 ( or less)
We run the 22 b Claw by Lewmar and are on short scope unless it's blowing hard, having sat thru a steady breeze of 45 knots a couple times, we know it's the right gear for us.
Our rode is not marked, I gauge the angle as it goes into the water as "about right" having cruised and lived aboard a while now I am confident in the gear I put in the water. The markings I've seen used are another thing needing maintenance and likely overkill for our wee boats
George
 
We use our C-Dory for diving so we anchor two times every time we go out. We marked our rode with blue Dykem at 25 feet intervals for the first 100 feet and fifty foot intervals after that. My last boat didn't have a windlass so I attached a lift bag to the anchor. At the end of each dive we would add enough air to the bag to raise the anchor a few feet off the bottom. Once we began pulling it up onboard the air would expand in the liftbag, making it really easy to pull it in. The anchor would usually pop to the surface before I even reached the chain.
 
We use paint on the chain to mark when the anchor is approaching water surface so we know it is close to coming into the roller. Water proof permanent marker of different colors has worked to mark the 3 strand rode so we know how much we have out. We use a combination of colors and hash marks to determine length of rode out. For example, one hash mark 6 inches in length indicates 25 feet of Rode, two hash marks in red is 50 ft...etc. We change colors at 100 feet and change colors again at 200 feet. Everybody seems to develop a system that makes sense to them. The marker lasts 2 or 3 seasons and then needs refreshed. We run 50 feet of chain and 225 feet of 3 strand rode.
 
I tried the heat shrink thing on my rode, but found that the marks would move. After that I went to colored permanent markers. They work well on nylon line.
 
ghone":2s7isvkt said:
All good ideas, you may want to cut 80 ft of chain off and use 40 attached to your rope rode however. C Dory's don't need all chain rode as some big boats use.
Retrieving even 60-80 ft of chain without a windlass is no fun
Our windlass is one of the top 1 or 2 items we put aboard.
Forget what you read in boating books about 7-1 scope it is rarely possible in today's crowded anchorages. Go a size bigger on your anchor (or two sizes) and relax with 3-1 ( or less)
We run the 22 b Claw by Lewmar and are on short scope unless it's blowing hard, having sat thru a steady breeze of 45 knots a couple times, we know it's the right gear for us.
Our rode is not marked, I gauge the angle as it goes into the water as "about right" having cruised and lived aboard a while now I am confident in the gear I put in the water. The markings I've seen used are another thing needing maintenance and likely overkill for our wee boats
George
Click to expand...

Agree 100% except I like to have a (warning the anchor is close) mark on the chain about 4 feet from the anchor. I use red liquid electrical tape, lasts about two years.

At 75lbs per 100' pulling in 1/4" chain would definitely build some serious upper body strength.
 
I have (actually) 72 feet of chain, 1/4", and weighed it the other day. 73 pounds. One of the advantages of having that length is that I can anchor in 10 to 25 feet, run the chain out to the chain rode connection and cleat it off there and be pretty confident that I'm good in most situations.

As George knows, On a steep banked shore, I should have put out a stern line once though :oops: :oops: :shock: :roll:

George, I just changed from the Delta Plow to a Rocna, (same weight). I debated going up in size, but I'm going to bank on the physics of the Rocna instead of more weight.

Want to try that bay again :?: :wink:

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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Just thought of another marker type. Colored nylon webbing. It would probably last longer than the West Marine type tags that I had on the rode before. Like the ones in the above link.

Just a thought.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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I take short pieces of blue steel crab line cut about 4 inches long and insert it through the rope at 50' intervals easy to see and very durable.
 
I use color coded tie wraps- the very small ones. Red every 100 feet and yellow every 25. I put them through the rode. E.g. 1 red and 2 yellows means 150 feet.
 
Today I had some help and we tried a couple of things. The first one was to "sew" colored carpet thread, nylon, through the 3 strand. Turned out my rode is to stiff, maybe to old and stiff to sew through. Next trick was wrapping with "Rescue tape". It goes on well, and the colored (I used red) showed up OK.. The white, not so good and I could not see it making the corner over the roller or dropping into the pipe as it came over the gypsy. The tape looked like it might be a good trick EXCEPT that on inspection after a couple of passes, it showed where it had "cut holes" where the teeth from the gypsy had cut the tape. BUMMER.

I did notice that there are still marks on the line from where I had marked it with red "Sharpie Permanent marker" a couple of years ago. I do have the little flag tags from West Marine that I had put on with zip ties, and they look like they are holding OK.

I think I am going to look for some white Dacron webbing, that I can mark with a Sharpie and try that. for a season.

Brooks, thanks for the help, and if I ever get all this done, maybe we can try a single handing outing yet.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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