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Post by Saline 42 DS on Jan 29, 2009 17:37:01 GMT
I have a Jeanneau SO 42 DS and am thinking about adding 200 ft of chain to my anchor. I was told by my dealer that it would put to much weight in the bow and may cause problems and I would have to counter the weight in the stern. Does anyone have experience with this? How much chain should I buy?
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Post by MartyB on Jan 29, 2009 18:37:33 GMT
The dealer is correct, in that if you put too much weight of ANY sort in the front of your boat, be it food, water, sails etc in say the Vee berth, or in your case chain up front, you will put the balance of the boat off, which will make it not sail as well. So yes, if you do this, put something in the rear of the boat to rebalance the fore/aft part of this equation. I am assuming you do not race the boat, as a racer would cringe at adding some 200-400 lbs of chain up there on a boat your size!
The same apply's loading side to side too, otherwise you will find you heel more one tack then the other. Or with too much weight in the fore/aft direction, you will get too much weather or lee helm in winder conditions and lose control of the boat in that manner.
Marty
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Post by Saline 42 DS on Jan 29, 2009 20:16:37 GMT
Thank you Marty,
You are correct that I do not race the boat, How much chain would you reccomend? I am looking at setting the anchor for several days at a time and it was reccomended to me that Chain would hold better.
Thank you for your reccomendation..
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Post by Trevor on Jan 29, 2009 22:13:41 GMT
I have 40 metres of 10mm chain and a 35lb Manson anchor on a SO36i. That seems to be enough chain in my part of the world. It holds nicely and I feel better with an all chain rode, particularly when the wind picks up.
Trevor
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Post by MartyB on Jan 29, 2009 23:43:37 GMT
How much? hmmmmmmmm 120 M like Trevor has would not even hit bottom in my part of the world in some cases! That varies as to where you go, how much rode, etc. If you're thinking you could end up in 100' of water, and want a 5 or 7-1 rode, now you're talking 700'! That would not be an under stated amount for some places here in Puget Sound. Then when up in Desolation sound, you need that 300-500 for the anchor, and another 300' of poly rope on a spool to tie to a tree on the shore! Along with that tree potentially being 20' from you an you still be in 100' of water, as there is a cliff at the side of the water going down that far!
I would imagine if your in the Chesapeake Bay area, 100M or 175 ' or there abouts like trevor has would be ample. In reality, that might not be too bad around here either. I'd still want a 200-500' rope handy to put at the end of the chain in some of the deeper spots around here.
I use 30' of chain and a rope that is 300' long for most of what I do. But, my boat is 30' and all of 6500 lbs of so, a bit different than Trevors 36 or your 42' boat that probably weighs 3 if not 4 x what I do!
Just realize, that wt in the front can and will cause some steerage issues in certain wind conditions etc. if you do not balance it somehow with some wt in the back of the boat.
Marty
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Post by mkremedy on Jan 30, 2009 4:44:51 GMT
Saline, My home port is Huntington LI. I put 200 feet of 5/8th chain with a 22lb Lewmar anchor onto my 36i last summer. It added a little bit of extra weight to the bow and I didn't bother to add weight to the stern. You can hardly tell that the bow sits 1" lower than the stern. The bottom paint is still above the water mark. If you do most of your sailing in Mystic, Long Island Sound and Block Island sound I think that 200 feet is good, we usually anchor on shallow water 20 feet max depth. I replaced the rope rode, because it did work well with the windlass.
Happy Sailing Martin Kohn Remedy
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Post by Saline 42 DS on Jan 30, 2009 18:31:51 GMT
Thank you all for your insights, I do not plan on anchoring in more than 20 to 30ft of water. I think I am going to add 125ft. of chain and attach it to my 200 feet of rope. I agree the rope does not work very well with my windlass either. Can be quite frustating at times..
Thank you again
Bruce
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Post by MartyB on Jan 30, 2009 19:30:53 GMT
Being the semi sarcastic person I can be........."What is a windlass?"
Is that wind being blown at you by a lass to make the sails catch air, so you can move forward?
I must find one of these persons, could come in handy on windlass days I would assume?!?!?!?!
Or some kind of mechanical thing a ma jig I have heard about for hauling up anchors, ropes, chains of some sort? Wife does just fine with anchor rope and chain, why spend the $$ for some item that wieghs down the bow, causing more weather helm? slows one down when racing.........
Marty
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Post by bottleinamessage on Jan 30, 2009 21:35:29 GMT
After years of struggling with a chain & rode arrangement, I finally gve in and went to all chain. I've cruised from ME to the southern Bahamas and most every "cruising sailboat" has all chain. Part of my problem with the previous arrangement was the less than ideal design of the anchor locker and factory placement of the windlass. I now have 250' of 5/16 HT chain. Life is so much easier and the boat trim didn't change that I could tell. BTW my boat is a 91 SO42.1.
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Post by mkremedy on Feb 1, 2009 2:11:03 GMT
Although I only have the 36i for 2 summers, the first summer I had 20 feet of chain and the balance was all rope. I found that the rope would fall tothe bottom of the anchor well and this caused a back up on the free windlass that came with the boat. The 2nd summer we went to all chain, the chain always went to the bottom of the anchor well and the windlass never backed up.
With 30 feet of water and a 7 to 1 ratio, this would mean you need a minimum of 210 feet of chain.
Good luck with your decision.
Happy Sailing Remedy
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Post by Don Reaves on Feb 1, 2009 13:28:02 GMT
Remedy,
If I'm not mistaken, my windlass manual says that you need to remove the tension from the windlass when anchored. Using a rope rode, this is easily done by tying it off to a bow cleat. When using only chain (I have 100 feet) I use a chain hook to hook a short rope to the chain. I then tie this rope off to a cleat.
In either case, this would remove the pressure from the windlass and prevent the back up you experienced.
Don
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Post by MalcolmP on Feb 1, 2009 17:45:21 GMT
Although I do have a shackle type of chain hook, I actually find that a single clove hitch is more than enough if that is tied on a short length of rope then the chain paid out until it is loose it has the triple benefit of taking the load off the windlass, it stops snatching and most importantly protects the bow if windblown over the chain
The clove hitch is easy to undo and as it smaller than hook will pass without problem over the bow-roller
Malcolm
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Post by krawall on Feb 2, 2009 3:15:45 GMT
What I would probably do is oversizing on the anchor and use less chain. 20ft of chain offset an anchor increase of 25lbs which would probably give you the ability to regularly anchor on 4-5:1 scope. The Dashews have done this regularly and anchor on 3:1 scope with oversized anchors.
The only disadvantage I can see is that the chain weight is much lower in the bow than the anchor but if you are intending to go up by 200lbs (210ft of chain assuming you have some 40feet now) or by 25lbs in anchor weight this is negligible.
My 36i will come with 16kg Delta anchor and 28m of chain. I intend to top this up to a 20-25kg Rocna/Manson Supreme Anchor and maybe get a slightly longer chain (say 32-35m) and only use chain for anchoring (ie, restricting myself in anchoring around 15-20 ft max, it gives me slightly below 5:1 scope which I think should be OK on a bigger anchor and in a blow)
Cheers,
Tom
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Post by mkremedy on Feb 3, 2009 4:03:18 GMT
Don,
The back up that I was referring to is when pulling up the anchor with the windlass. The rope doesn't fall to the bottom of the anchor well, it piles up on itself, because it is light weight. This in turn causes the rope to back up after it make the 180 degree turn around the capstan. Once I went to all chain, the weight of the chain, made the chain fall to the bottom of the well and therfore I didn't have a problem.
If I didn't have the elctric windlass, I would use rpe and chain.
Good luck
Happy Sailing
Martin Kohn Remedy
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Post by bottleinamessage on Feb 4, 2009 19:25:43 GMT
If I didn't have an electric windlass, I wouldn't anchor!! ;D
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Post by boatingpridd on Mar 16, 2009 14:31:35 GMT
I have a Jeanneau SO 42 DS and am thinking about adding 200 ft of chain to my anchor. I was told by my dealer that it would put to much weight in the bow and may cause problems and I would have to counter the weight in the stern. Does anyone have experience with this? How much chain should I buy?
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Post by boatingpridd on Mar 16, 2009 14:41:12 GMT
Hi Sailine I've just picked up on your anchor chain question. I too have just taken delivery of a 42DS which came equipped with 80 feet (25 meters) of 10mm (three eighths) chain together with 150 feet (50 meters) of rope. What did you finally settle on regarding the length of chain you carry and did it have any adverse affect on the handling? In my previous life as a motor boater, I have always anchored on all chain and have previously carried around 60 - 70 meters (200 - 230 feet) of chain. From your experience, what is the safest max length of three eighths Regards Boatingpridd
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Post by rxc on Mar 17, 2009 8:30:28 GMT
I have 3 anchors on board my 43DS. The main one is a 20kg Delta on 275 ft of 5/16 HT chain. I have a smaller 33 lb Bruce on 75 ft of 5/16 HT with 200 ft of 1/2" nylon. I also have an additional shot of 3/8 PC that the original owner left behind with 200 ft of 5/8" nylon that is not attached to anything but could be hooked up to a Fortress FX-37. I have the anchor locker divided so that these chains are separated and I can set more than one anchor if I need to.
I have not had any problems anchoring with the Delta, including anywhere along the east coast south of Newport and the Bahamas. It also held well in Bermuda during 2 gales in St. Georges Harbor with sustained winds of 30 kts. It will be interesting to see what works best here in France, but I think I will continue to use all-chain here, because of the rocks. In the Chesapeake Bay, you only really need about 20 ft of chain, although all-chain really helps the anchor dig in and stay set.
I have not seen any problems with this weight in the bow, but I also have a genset installed aft, so maybe I have balanced the boat properly, if not intentionally.
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