Thinking of Going to All Chain

P

Pat Anderson

New member
We bought 200' of rode and 30' chain last year, but just used it for the first time over the five days we were out crabbing in area 7 south. We had asked for a narrow spice, and noticed when we went to pick it up that it was not a narrow splice, so we had them do it over. To our dismay, this past week the rode came in fine but the splice jammed and would not go into the locker almost every time. Windlass is a Lewmar 700. If the splice did go in, the chain went in fine.

So my question is, how much does chain weigh, and if I got, say, 200' of chain, would the weight cause a problem for a C-Dory 25? If you use all chain, how much do you carry? We need to solve this pretty soon because crabbing season in area 7 north will be upon us pretty soon!
 
I had a Lewmar 700 on a prior non-CD boat and loved it. Of course, I had pulled by hand before so a new windlass was really great. I probably would have been happy even if it jammed sometimes, but I never had a single time when the windlass even hiccuped when going from line to chain. When they work, they work great. I think I did my own splice based on Google info.

I have all chain now on my trawler. 365 feet of chain, which I figure is 365 pounds right in the very tip of the bow (above the waterline). I'm not sure I want that weight there. My windlass has a chain/line gypsy and I am thinking of going back to about 60' of chain and the rest line to lighten the load and get a little "cushion" in the anchor system. Chain can be noisy and a little herky-jerky in some situations.

I would think that all chain in a CD wouldn't be a good idea for planing. Better to look into a recommended chain/line splice. Even buying one of the Lewmar spliced rodes would be cheaper than going all chain. Bass Pro Shops might even let you return it if it doesn't work.

https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/lewmar- ... lsrc=aw.ds
 
Pat,

I used to have this same problem. I finally cut the rode/chain splice off along with maybe 15 feet of rode to get to nice relatively unabused rode. Then I learned (youtube also) how to do a chain/rode splice that tapers (not too hard -- one has to cut out about 1/3 of the strands every couple of full tucks such that the splice itself tapers gradually to the rode-only portion). I can easily see how some rope guy might just do the splice the "easy" way, and then you're going to have trouble.

I have also found that I must periodically crawl into the vee-berth, open the chain locker, and push the rode around. If you let out 100+ feet of rode, when you pull it up again, it tends to build up into a pile which sort of "plugs up" the area below the hawsepipe which can cause the rode, especially at the splice, to get stubborn.

No way I'd go all chain.
 
After using rope/chain for a few decades I went with all chain a couple of years ago. I got tired of having to re-splice every 6-12 months. I got tired of rode slipping through the gypsy. I got tired of buying new rode every few years.

We use our Tomcat for diving. We anchor every time we take the boat out, usually at least twice per trip. The wear on the rode was too much. We now have 400 feet of chain. The boat holds in all conditions we dive in. There is usually enough chain on the bottom that there is no strain on the anchor. We never worry about dragging anchor while we're diving. The weight of the chain allows us to descend almost vertically, saving a little extra air in our tanks for the bottom portion of the dive.

I have colored chain markers every 25 feet so I know how much to play out. If the windlass every gave out, I would make another dive and place a lift bag on the anchor to make retrieving it easier. That's what I used to do on my last boat without a windlass.
 
Even in my large long distance cruising boats I did not have all chain. 200' would be way too much weight in the bow of a 25. 200 feet of 1/4" G4 chain would weight 126#. I felt tat 100' was too much in my first 25. One of the Eastern dealers always put 100 feet of chain on each boat. I still have 50' of that laying on the gravel in my "boat yard". A good splice which works with 3 strand is not that difficult to make. There are a number of U tube videos and tutorials which are available on the internet. There are two ways: one is to weave the 3 strands down the chain, and the other is a conventional back splice. I prefer the back splice. One strand goes one way thru the first link, two strands go the other way. You just have to keep track of the strands, so they don't tuck under themselves. It is otherwise just like an eye space.

I have done this on multiple cruising and racing boats and never had a failure, even in winds in excess of 90 knots. Smckean is spot on with the taper. You can even go with 1/4 instead of 1/3 if you want a longer taper. The re-do of the splice will take you a couple of hours max. You can build a computer--you can do a splice. I have faith you my friend!

What depth of water are you anchoring in?
 
Pat,
Yes all chain G43 does go into a Lewmar 700 easy, but agree 200 ft is too bow heavy for a TC255 or CD25.

We like 100ft Lewmar chain to 200 ft Lewmar 8 plait line they splice at Defender...Never a problem since switching, but not the cheapest solution.

Your issue may well be not having at least a 12 inch 'drop' space in the rode locker if you don't use the flat-folding 8 plait line. Just have crew down there to 'spread it out' as it comes in if you can.

She would no doubt enjoy that. NOT!

You will figure out a best solution that works for you guys!

John
 
Pat Anderson":1tlxwfw1 said:
We bought 200' of rode and 30' chain last year, but just used it for the first time over the five days we were out crabbing in area 7 south. We had asked for a narrow spice, and noticed when we went to pick it up that it was not a narrow splice, so we had them do it over. To our dismay, this past week the rode came in fine but the splice jammed and would not go into the locker almost every time. Windlass is a Lewmar 700. If the splice did go in, the chain went in fine.

So my question is, how much does chain weigh, and if I got, say, 200' of chain, would the weight cause a problem for a C-Dory 25? If you use all chain, how much do you carry? We need to solve this pretty soon because crabbing season in area 7 north will be upon us pretty soon!
Click to expand...

Pat, We need some more information. What kind of rode did you buy? How deep are you wanting (need) to anchor in? I believe the Lewmar 700 is a horizontal windlass, right?

OK, Next, I have quite a different approach to anchoring than many folk here do. AND, I have been considering adding a bit of chain, to have a total of 100 feet. I anchor frequently, with no issues running rode through the gypsy BECAUSE I don't. I have 73 feet of chain, and 180 feet of 3ply Nylon rode. My splice does not go into the chain, but into a link and back spliced. Sometimes it would go through the gypsy, sometimes it would take several tries, and sometimes not. NOT cool, because I am single handing and I am NOT going up on the foredeck short of a serious emergency NOT every time I want to weigh anchor . . .

SO, a fairly easy fix. I anchor where I can use 70 feet of chain, always. It always goes in and out on the gypsy, not issues, and when weighing anchor, it stacks up pretty high in the locker so as I am running the windlass in, (done with the engines running high enough RPM so the electrical is charging not drawing on the battery), I use a boat hook and tap the stack a bit to knock it down and then run the windlass again. Easy. Clean, and trouble free. (I have covered my anchor washing procedure before in detail -- basically keep it in the water, shallow, and back away using prop-wash, then retrieve it to the anchor roller.)

Is 70 feet enough chain? It has been for 5 years. I anchor in shallow water, about 5 feet at low tide. That may be shallower than you want. So, 30 feet more chain for a CD-25 would be fine. You could anchor in 10 feet. 8)

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

0_God_s_Pocket_Anchorage.thumb.jpg
 
Harvey's use of chain brings up another reason I go quite a bit over on the length of chain if using chain/line and a windlass. The "boat length" rule of thumb means that you would have 25' of chain for a 25' boat. That also means that when pulling it up through a windlass the chain/line splice would go/not go through the windlass with about 15 to 20' of chain still in the water. 15 to 20 feet of water is also about where most would anchor a 25' boat. That means that just when your windlass screws up and you go forward to mess with it, your anchor is likely out and you are drifting. I'd rather have the problem with 40' of chain still out.
 
Hi Pat,

FWIW, for Puget Sound up through SE Alaska, I'd suggest your 25' boat would work well with 50' of chain (or a bit more), spliced to 250-300' of rope. We anchored our 11,000 lb 26-footer hundreds of nights over 18 summers of cruising the Inside Passage with 40-42' of 1/4" HT chain and 250-300' of 1/2" three-strand nylon rope, in 20 to 65 feet of water, with complete success.

I thoroughly washed and rinsed the rope, reversed both chain and rope, and re-did the tapered back splice at the end of every summer. It did not always get past the windlass (Simpson Lawrence 600, predecessor to the Lewmar 700) without help, but did so more often than not. I was out on the bow during retrieval, so that was OK for me.
 
We use 50' 1/4" HT G4 chain, with 300 feet of 8 plait. No problems.
One issue I constantly emphasize: The windlass is for taking up slack, and for pulling the chain and anchor out of the water. It is not for "pulling the boat to the anchor", or for "breaking out the anchor". With 50' we have rarely found places we could not have the chain engaged when we pulled the chain and anchor to the boat.

On our larger cruising boats we had 160' and 200' of chain respectively. We backed with 400 feet of appropriate sized line--and anchored in over 100' of water at times.
 
Pat I run 100 ft of chain in the susan e (27) and never have a problem on anchor, In the areas that you anchor you will not need more than that for a over night. With the weight of the chain you need less slope then when you run short chain and rode combo. In the 22 we ran 30 ft of chain and 200 of rode and quite often needed to let out over 150 ft to get a good hold in 30 ft of water ( 7 to 1 slope). With the chain I just run out 100 ft in 40 ft or less of water and 50 to 60 ft of water for a lunch break, with no problems. Anything less then 40 ft and a 100 ft of chain is more then enough for my 27.I do not think that you will ever need more then that but for those few times I would run 100 ft chain backed by 200 ft of rode not 200 ft of chain. Hope that helps.
 
thataway":js0p8q4i said:
Even in my large long distance cruising boats I did not have all chain. 200' would be way too much weight in the bow of a 25. 200 feet of 1/4" G4 chain would weight 126#. I felt tat 100' was too much in my first 25. One of the Eastern dealers always put 100 feet of chain on each boat. I still have 50' of that laying on the gravel in my "boat yard". A good splice which works with 3 strand is not that difficult to make. There are a number of U tube videos and tutorials which are available on the internet. There are two ways: one is to weave the 3 strands down the chain, and the other is a conventional back splice. I prefer the back splice. One strand goes one way thru the first link, two strands go the other way. You just have to keep track of the strands, so they don't tuck under themselves. It is otherwise just like an eye space.

I have done this on multiple cruising and racing boats and never had a failure, even in winds in excess of 90 knots. Smckean is spot on with the taper. You can even go with 1/4 instead of 1/3 if you want a longer taper. The re-do of the splice will take you a couple of hours max. You can build a computer--you can do a splice. I have faith you my friend!

What depth of water are you anchoring in?
Click to expand...

I'm 100% with Bob
:thup :thup :thup
 
Marco Flamingo":2nzluh72 said:
Harvey's use of chain brings up another reason I go quite a bit over on the length of chain if using chain/line and a windlass. The "boat length" rule of thumb means that you would have 25' of chain for a 25' boat. That also means that when pulling it up through a windlass the chain/line splice would go/not go through the windlass with about 15 to 20' of chain still in the water. 15 to 20 feet of water is also about where most would anchor a 25' boat. That means that just when your windlass screws up and you go forward to mess with it, your anchor is likely out and you are drifting. I'd rather have the problem with 40' of chain still out.
Click to expand...

Mark, Really no need to anchor a C-Dory in "15 to 20 of water". Now I know you didn't specify high or low tide, but 5 feet at low tide still gives you 2-3 feet of bottom clearance. OK, maybe you want to figure 7 feet at low tide. That may be 15 to 20 feet at high tide, easily handled with 100 feet of chain. (No rode to chain issue with 100 ft chain.) That is still close to a 5 to 1 scope, and with the full chain you have the extra weight over what you would have with the nylon rode, the holding will be excellent (providing you do a good anchor set).

Yes, the shallower spot takes a bit more care in picking and setting, but it pays off in quieter, less crowded spots.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

6_June_2017.thumb.jpg
 
Pat Anderson":3bso9p2n said:
...this past week the rode came in fine but the splice jammed and would not go into the locker almost every time. Windlass is a Lewmar 700. If the splice did go in, the chain went in fine.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a splice issue, or a rode stacking issue. We run 25' of chain and 275' of 8-plait. Occasionally, our Lewmar 700 hangs at the splice. When that happens, it's typically solved by letting a bit of rode out, and re-retrieving (it may take a coupe of tries to get the splice to pass). Sometimes, when we anchor deeper than 40-50 feet (so most of the rode is deployed), the rode gets stacked too high in the anchor locker and needs pushed to one side mid-retrieval.

Good luck with whatever solution you pursue.
 
Thanks all for the advice!

To answer Harvey's questions, we usually anchor in 10'-15' of water. The deepest we have ever anchored was at James Island, and I think that was about 60'. Our rode is eight strand 1/2".

I am thinking 70 feet of 1/4" chain of the proper type, backed up by some amount of our existing rode. maybe 100', would cover just about all the contingencies. The splice would not even come out except in unusual circumstances, and the Lewmar 700 handles the chain just fine. Sound about right?

Patty will probably take a whack at the splice, I have NO thought that I could do it. If she has a problem, we can always take it back to LFS and pay them just for the splice.
 
I wrote the text below thinking about my situation which has always involved 3 ply rope. Since you have 8 ply, that's a whole different ball game. I've never tried it, but I understand that splicing with 8 ply is more difficult than 3 ply.
--------------------------------

I love that I took the time to learn to splice. Now that I can do it, I find all kinds of reasons to use the new skill.

I'd highly recommend getting some cheap, small diameter (1/4" or 3/8" or even 1/2" if you have some laying around), somewhat loosely laid line to practice with first. 10 feet of line will give you lots to practice with. You *will* make lots of errors until you get the hang of it, and come up with a few "rules" of your own to help you remember which strand goes over or under or whatever.
 
70 feet would be a good compromise. If you had ordered a rope to chain splice which would go thru a windlass, then that is what you should have gotten. No reason to pay to have them re-do it. They should have done it right the first time. Show them this thread if they hesitate to do it properly. It is not rocket science. Splicing predates rockets by several thousands of years.
 
We have changed our anchor rode set up several times since we've have had our boat (22 cruiser) and what we have settled on is 175' of three strand nylon with 100' of 1/4" chain using a tapered long splice that I did myself.
Before that we had 250' 8 plait and 50' of chain. The 8 plait gave us problems from the start. It seemed to want to slip at times even if it wasn't at the splice and sometimes would stick to the gypsy and jam up. That is why we went back to the 3 strand. I figured that as long as I was going to do a splice I would try 100' of chain and see how I liked it. if it was too heavy and made the boat handle badly it is easy to cut some off. As it turned out, the extra weight hasn't caused any problems with handling so we still have the full 100' of chain. We have been all through the San Juan.s and Gulf Islands and as far North as Desolation Sound. We also go out in to the Ocean as far as Swift Sure Bank on fishing trips. We have done this in some very rough conditions at times and the boat seems fine with the 100' of chain in the bow. We dont have any storage compartments in our v-birth, so the chain is the only real weight that we carry in the bow. The splice on the 3 strand was pretty simple and it has never hung up once.
Quite often the anchorages we come across are very crowded and it is nice to have the chain to let out a shorter rode for less swing room. Another advantage to the chain is that it comes up much cleaner than the rope. Mud and seaweed wash off much easier.
I would think that a 25 C-Dory could handle the 100'. It is worth experimenting with. You can always cut some off if you don't like it.
 
Just my 2 cents worth, and what do I know? Not a lot says the Admiral.
Recommended length of chain is one and a half times the length of the boat. So 40 to 50 ft is plenty long enough for a light boat such as a C-Dory. Assuming that a rode is going to be spliced on to the chain (and spliced properly) why would one want extra chain hoping that the splice does not reach the windlass? Anchoring overnight, I would not want chain secured at the bow, makes to much clunking noise if a bit of wind picks up unless you are going to use rode and snubbers to eliminate any whiplash.

Now to the splicing part. I get it that a person who has never spliced before would be apprehensive in tackling the job. But honestly, it is so easy to do, as others have mentioned in this thread. Pick a nice sunny day, sit on the bow with your "How to splice book" or laptop with your YouTube video, you will have a great time. Heck, pack a sandwich and a coffee and have a splice party.

My G/son aged 11 can back splice and eye splice. I don't think he has done a tapered splice yet, but I know he could. I wished he lived a bit closer to you, then he could earn some pocket money.

Have fun,
Martin.
 
The chain is not noisy at all if you put a short a short snubber on it. If room allows, I like to let out the 100' of chain and about 5' to 10' of rope. This eliminates the need for the snubber and the rope does not touch bottom or get muddy. Chain comes up much cleaner than a rope lying on the bottom. The tappered long splice on the three strand never fails to go through the windlass.
That has been our experience and it works for us.
 
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