Lori has been threatening to make my life hell if she writes the next dozen Cat Tales posts and I don’t write any. And a cruising friend recently asked what we had for ground tackle, whether we liked it, etc and I got verbose in my reply. So, in the eco-spirit of blog conservationism – Reduce (that didn’t work for me), Reuse (that’s this post), Recycle (what you’ll do with this post) – here is more than you want to know about the anchoring stuff aboard Cheshire.
For the last 2 1/2 years we have used a 15kg Rocna with a no-name (Suncor?) 2-way stainless swivel on 120′ of no-name 5/16″ G4 galvanized chain and 150′ of 5/8″ 3-strand nylon. We also use a bridle with 20′ legs of 5/8″ 3-strand nylon. We have been very happy with this setup; we have never drug once set, and the only times we’ve had issues getting set is in very thick grass or really soupy mud – no one else was anchored there either. And the long bridle works wonders preventing sailing excessively at anchor.
All that being said, I just swapped out the rode because the chain had rusted badly. It drug across a sharp edge on the anchor roller going both in and out, and I think that scraped the zinc off. And the nylon rode was older than the chain and had hardened up too much to re-splice. And one of the pins in the swivel was frozen so I couldn’t get it off the old chain.
I hope I’ve corrected the abrasion problem with a Starboard track in the anchor roller and back to the windlass.
The Rocna is a wonder. It even worked like a grapnel anchor on the bare rock bottom of the Little Shark River; it had to have flipped and reset with the reversing current every six hours and I don’t think it ever drug more than a few feet. And at first I thought maybe I should have gotten a 20kg, but the 15kg has never budged. Remember, however, that a Gemini has very little frontal windage for a cat.
With the Rocna and enough chain, I usually only use a 5:1 scope when there is decent fetch protection and less than 20kts of wind, so we very seldom had out more than 90′ of that chain. And in strong, gusty wind more rope is better than more chain.
I’ve read horror stories about swivels – being the weak link, failing without warning, don’t use ’em unless you have to to solve a problem.
I’ve read good things about using 12-plait single braid nylon as anchor rode and mooring lines – easy to handle, no torque, stows in a compact pile instead of a large coil.
So I now have the Rocna, no swivel, 90′ of ACCO 5/16″ G43 hot-dipped galvanized chain, 140′ of NER 5/8″ Megabraid nylon, held together with Wichard 3/8″ stainless Allen-head D shackles. Won’t get a chance to try it out until this fall.
I spliced the Megabraid to a shackle instead of straight to the chain because
- the stainless shackle is smooth and the galvanized chain not so much
- the connection doesn’t go through our manual windlass anyway
- I can easily end-for-end the chain
I used a long-bury splice instead of a tuck splice because it is stronger, and it looked easier and neater, but it was still a bitch to do. I have a couple ideas for next time, like if I make a new bridle and have to do four splices.
The shackles have the flush Allen head pin; nothing to snag running in or out, but with no eye to run seizing wire through. I used LocTite as recommended, and I never had a problem with the old stainless swivel that was attached the same way, but I’m still trying to figure out how to loop a couple of turns of wire over the pin head.
I had looked into sucking it up and spending huge bucks on stainless chain, but even the best 316L stainless still has a significantly lower working strength than G43, so I would have had to go up to 3/8″ BBB at a big increase in foredeck weight or less chain length.
Mike
Great blog, I was getting tired of reading about shore birds…………
You didn’t happen to take any pics of the old tackle?
Probably have some when the old stuff was new – why are you asking?
That’s exactly how I would do it, except for that one part.