Our anchor chain was getting WELL past its due date - jamming when we needed to pay it out and slowly disintegrating in the anchor locker. We needed to upgra...

Closed Captions (CC):
last week we talked personal safety gear

and showed you what we keep in our grab

bag this week we're changing out our old

chain and talking ground pepper okay so

as you can see our chains our anchor

chains looking a bit rusty we're

changing it over for some new girl chain

we're also going from 70 metres to 100

metres because we'll need that for our

growing at different atolls that are

quite deep so yeah well we're not going

to throw this chain away we're going to

take it for a drive up a gravel road and

clean off the flakes and salvage what

chain we can and we'll use that for

stern anchors or extra extra strength

for moorings or cyclones or bad weather

so yeah we'll use we'll save what we can

and use it when we need it

so Darren's just on his way we're gonna

offload this chain and get the new chain

on board

feel it was a bit of work if 100 made

its chain 220 kilos of chain that was

now we're going to get it on would bite

down into the anchor Locker

look at our lovely chain so yeah we got

new girl chain it's ten mil short link

PWB brand so yeah we went for the more

expensive but this is our life insurance

when we were anchored on often at all

that stormy weather might come through

and at least we know we've got good

ground tackle so yeah get her on board

[Laughter]

Makemake how's it looking

oh pretty good just a bit go to limit it

yeah it's not a very big drain hole

actually there but it's it's designed

like that for a reason so you know when

the bear gets buried into a way but you

know quarter know not much water can

surge back up into the anchor well but

it's important to sort of keep it

relatively kind because the other the

other scenario is that when you take on

water over the bear you can actually get

a lot of water come down the horse port

if it's it's not particularly covered up

so you know this this little grain will

Kai defer for that sort of scenario but

in saying that if you get a lot of mud

in the in the bottom of the anchor

Locker you can also block block that up

so then next thing you know you've

you've got water

you know lapping up here even though

this is a war of watertight bulkhead oh

you know well if this was full you know

potentially it's quite a big cavity you

could you know coal probably three or

four hundred litres of water and be

quite a bit of pressure on that it might

be weather proof but I'm not really sure

about the in order

yeah yes it's fairly important to keep

that drawing fairly fairly clear I've

heard of a guy that nearly lost the boat

just through the same thing I have to

yeah I've heard those stories so yeah

it's a lot of volume to have at the

front of the boat yeah okay so I just

thought I'd show you the remnants

hopefully yeah

China's a little bits of rust and main

that have come off the chain over the

years I was all sitting in the bottom of

the anchor well we've pulled out about

five or six of these trays worth of of

Menken Dustin rust so a chain that the

last of the chain was slowly

disintegrating in the bottom of the

anchor well and eventually it was just

causing us a lot of trouble every time

we went to get anchored because it was

sort of wedged and all this mud that was

caked in the bottom of the anchor well

so every time we wondered if we were in

a deep Anchorage and we wanted to pay

out all of our chain it was becoming a

bit of a problem to get it out so yeah

anyway new chain going in fairly shortly

Darren's down there just cleaning out

the anchor well getting the last of the

mud out and clearing the drain hole and

we'll have a hundred meters of new new

chain beauty

[Music]

look at that shining you entertain all

righty where is it oh it's still in the

trusty steed town car so to speak

look at that beautiful anchor chain just

sliding on in no rust flakes all over

the dick I love it yeah so the way that

we mark our chain so that we know how

much we've got out as we put cable ties

on every 10 meters so this is the 90

meter mark so Darren is going to put 9

cable ties on here and anything to hold

up pretty well we used to use well I've

used paint in the past but it seems to

wear off with going through the emotions

of in and out in sea life so these

things seems to last quite a while we

find them quite effective okay so there

you see Darren's got the the shackles on

we we always use rated shackles but we

will not sure about this arrangement

we're just sort of thinking about

putting a swivel on here so we're just

going to use this for now and see what

we come up with research-wise for a good

quality swivel yes so you can as you can

see there Darren's just seizing the pin

of the shackle to the shackle which is

just another safety mechanism of the

whole anchoring procedure will stop the

pin coming out I have seen halfway on

pins and shackles and that wouldn't be a

very good very good outcome for us if

our anchor let go because of a pin

coming out of a shackle we'll say yeah

so we just get the stainless wire

seizing wire and that's what you use in

the marine environment looking good

honey okay so we just thought that we

went add-on for you a bit of information

about our ground tackle because week a

quite a few people asking us what we do

have is our ground tackles so what we

run is our working anchor which we can't

show you at the moment because it's

currently busy at work and that is a

50-pound mensen plow and it's it's been

a really good anchor for us and holds

and almost any conditions we've come up

with so far

it's a great multi-purpose anchor we've

you know we've had it for years and

years and it's been a great thing

I guess there's better things on the

market these days but I'd probably buy

another one I think they're great

yeah so the other one that we have is

Delta and it's a good little backup

anchor we use it as a stern anchor and

for helping us out when we're in rivers

or in tight situations and also we

haven't use it in this way yet but our

intention is if we need to we can add it

to the chain on there working anchor and

use it as a secondary in line back up

anchor so that's basically this little

guy it's actually light enough you can

put in it you put in that tender and run

it out behind you so it's um

it's quite good for that sort of

scenario where you need to you know I

run the law net behind either getting

you in somewhere okay so the other

anchor that we have that we are really

happy with and we just got this actually

and this is a storm anchor and this is a

mantis 105 pounds and she's a beefy

number I mean look at her big big she is

a really long shank and comes apart in

three pieces which we thought was really

important for stowage on the boat

because she's such a big girl and one of

the things we particularly like about it

is the point it actually got extra

weight on it and Darrin was watching

some really good YouTube videos actually

and mentis has some good videos as well

the point actually because it's got the

extra weight it'll actually dig in a

little bit further than other Thai other

brands that we've that we compared it to

so that's one of the other reasons we

really liked it the other advantage with

mantas they they rave a bit

how fast I actually said and when you

say that the design of them and the way

these anchors are actually balanced I'll

just show you

you know when it we're not sitting like

that this this thing just all the white

is nearly on the point and I got a nice

sharp point so if the cbiit really hard

you know it's got the ability to bite in

where some of the others just just

haven't got that determination we'll use

for a word so it had really to tell you

big things that going for the Mantis

that sort of sold us but when you watch

some of those YouTube videos on

comparisons in some of the top anchors

it was it personally I think though away

in front of anything else and I would

certainly probably buy one of those for

a working anchor when we now all play

out decides that it's gonna wander off

to Davy Jones's Locker

so yeah what's the chain that we just

took off that we just saw swapped over

we cut off a couple of 20 meter lengths

of that chain of the chain that was

still viable from the old anchor chain

and we've kept that for for use in

storms or stern anchors or whatever just

to give us that little bit of extra

weight and when we tie that on to our

nylon Road

we've got 125 meter of nylon Road that

we attach the 3/8 chain length to and we

have got some 25 meter lengths of nylon

Road already cut up so we'll use that

extra roll as we need it depending on

which situations we come to so it might

be a stern line or as you know extra

spare lines for cyclone mooring and as

the old ones wear out so yeah good to

have on board yeah so we this anchor is

a storm anchor it's rated for a 50 to 60

foot vessel and our vessel is a 47 foot

so there's a little bit oversized but

we're really happy with that is little

extra insurance so it's a 40 kg

105-pound storm anchor and

they meant to say for wind spring wind

speeds greater than 55 knots so we've

discussed this and we would happily sit

out a cat one maybe a cat two cyclone

which is tops of 70 knots but we would

not sit out this is our own personal

decision we would not sit out more than

that on this anchor if it's anything

more than a cat to hit in your way we

would be hitting for other forms of

shelter and that would be our primary

choice in any scenario so if it was just

a cat run and we could get that's our

first choice so I just wanted to

reiterate that yeah just because we have

spent a bit of time in cyclone areas so

typically what we've both found is that

you know that cat that debbie cyclone

debbie which was a cat vibe that we sat

through it was a cat one we first saw it

and it was a cat fire by the time it got

to us

cyclones are unpredictable and as they

get to the coast they spin up more and

become more our strongest systems in

1900 more so yeah our first preference

is to run and hide something run for

cover

yeah so this is a storm anchor for storm

weather not necessarily a cyclone anchor

yeah that that's official it's just a

little bit of a little bit more

insurance if you're at a little bit

wider and there's nowhere to run

look god I certainly wouldn't recommend

being somewhere where there's nowhere to

hide and come cyclone season yeah always

fun somewhere always fun when you hit it

in cyclone zone always find somewhere

that you're going to hang out and be

safe in before the cyclone comes don't

be looking for it when there's a cyclone

coming your way you already must know

where you're going to run to wherever

you are when you're in a cyclones oh

yeah for sure yeah so mantas were our

top choice and we found actually they

were a top company to deal with we were

really happy with their service just

really good people are easy to get hold

of and we're not in the easiest location

to get to and this anchor rocked up to

us in about four days

so we were really really impressed with

with mantas as a company so yeah yeah go

for it if you're curious I'm checking

out on YouTube and they've got some

really good videos on YouTube which show

the way in which the anchor sets and

hulls so that you can have it there if

you're looking for a new anchor or a

storm anchor then maybe check those out

and you'll be able to see whether it's

the anchor for you okay so that about

wraps up this episode and thank you very

much we hope you found it informative if

you've got any questions please comment

below we'd be happy to answer them for

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that's good bye from Captain flu and

goodbye for me wishing you a great week

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