One of the most important pieces of gear on your boat is the anchoring equipment, especially if you want to spend time living off the hook. Getting a secure hold on the bottom means that you sleep well and don’t panic too much when the wind picks up.
The boat came with a 45lb CQR anchor and about 40m of 8mm galvanised short link chain. The Windlass is a Muir Cougar and there is a similar sized spare anchor with 50m of rope and chain.
anchor chain
The most obvious problem was that the anchor chain was badly corroded and needed replacing. Before sailing down from the Gold Coast I had to cut out 10m of chain that was badly corroded. Looking at the recommendations for a 40ft cat, it was obvious that the chain was under sized and the anchor size rather marginal.
Since the chain needed replacing we decided to install the 10mm short link chain. Of course the gypsy needed to be replaced too. The Muir Cougar windlass will handle up to 10mm chain but the cost of a new Gypsy was almost as much as the new chain. However I could sell the old gypsy as it was still in good condition.
Galvanised chain is rather expensive at around $18 per meter. So I decided to buy steel chain and get it hot dip galvanised. this has the advantage that the galvanising is more heavy duty and should last longer. managed to get a good deal on 230 meters of chain at $4 per meter. Galvanising is about $6 per meter. Decided on 80m of chain and sold the remainder on eBay. Because the galvanising has to be spun in a basket, the maximum length of chain was 90m. So got 3 lengths galvanised and the chain did not end up costing too much.
There was also a problem with the Windlass. The foot switch did not work reliably. After pulling it apart, found that the contacts were corroded but easily fixed with a bit of filing. Also the larger chain kept jamming as it fed into the anchor locker. Had to relocate the guide and stripper to get it operating reliably.
windlass control
Additionally the Windlass would only operate coming up and not going down. Cabling looks to be in good condition and is adequately sized. Contacted Muir as the Windlass wiring did not match their schematic! My unit has four power wires coming out while their schematic only shows 4. So had to trace through the wiring and found that 2 of the contractors were faulty. Being an old boat, it was built with individual contactors to control the operation rather than the modern units with internal contactors. And finding old design contactors that used to be common on automotive applications proved difficult. Ended up sourcing them from Hong Kong! At least they fit exactly.
The anchor should be upgraded as well. The CQR is a plough type anchor and while effective under most normal conditions, it does not have the holding power of the current generation concave designs. The Sarca Excel No 5 at 22kg would be my choice for this boat but there are lots of others just as good. The new generation of anchors set faster and hold better according to data from lots of testing. So this is definitely an item on the “To Do” list.
operational Feedback
After 6 months of cruising and living at anchor, the system has worked very well. Although the anchor should be upgraded, we did not have any problems with dragging even with winds above 30 knots. However we always selected locations with good holding such as sand and mud.
We will look at upgrading to a current generation anchor at some time in the future.