T&T: Anchor Chain Recommendation

[Tom Ferri]

When I bought the my boat it had the Simpson/Lawrence 900 and 300' of HT 
chain ... all looking new, seldom if ever used. but when I tried to anchor 
in deeper water it was very problematic.

After some good advise from this list and many phone calls I found the 
difference between HT Chain and BBB Chain.  The catalog for Campbell chain 
spec's the BBB 5/16" chain as 12 links per foot ... the HT 5/16" chain as 
9.4 links per foot. That is about a 12% difference in link length.

For the Simpson/Lawrence 900, as you noted, the BBB works fine with the 
provided wildcat ... but I had HT chain. Brian from the Offshore Store in 
Seattle suggested I try a wildcat from a different model Simpson/Lawrence 
windless that specifically listed the HT chain and may fit the 900, it did 
and the problem was solved.

The point of the story for the original post is double check the wildcat 
size and kind of chain (BBB or HT) before buying. I must say that a 1 foot 
sample would not have helped me as I would not have seen the problem in a 
small sample.

I don't know if this would be a problem with other brands of windlasses. 
Also these were rope/chain wildcats not chain only.


PS
Mike: Would a rope/chain combination be a gypsy or a wildcat?






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Randy Pickelmann" <rwp_48@yahoo.com>
To: <trawlers-and-trawlering@lists.samurai.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 5:52 AM
Subject: T&T: Anchor Chain Recommendation


> Tom wrote "I have a Simpson/Lawrence 900 that came with my boat. It has 
> 300'
> of 5/16" HT Chain.  The gypsy ( or wildcat pick your poison ) was labeled 
> for
> 5/16".
>
> Tom,
> That's interesting.  I have the same windlass but it came with a gypsy for
> 5/16" BBB chain.  That's what I put on the boat and have had no problems.
> Regards,
> Randy Pickelmann
> hard aground in Clearwater
> MORNING STAR
> lying in Solomon's, MD
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