Marking Anchor chain

Was wondering what the best way to mark anchor chain was, I've seen people using tie raps, spray paint, and both together. just wondering the best way to mark it. Also we'll be attaching the bitter end of the chain to a piece of Nylon 3 strand for emergency cutting.

Hi Oliver,

We've had good luck with the Imtra Chain Markers inserted into our chain links.



I also add tie wraps, but they don't seem to last long and we have not lost a chain marker yet.

I was looking at those. How many did you need and what incraments did you mark your chain at?

I use red and white spray paint. I start with an all-white 6' long section about 10' above the anchor. That lets me know that I'm almost all the way up and need to slow down the retrieval of the chain.

Above that, I mark red/white sections (1' long each) at 25' and 75'. At 50' and 100' I mark white/red/white, again about 1' each color.

Then similar marks at 150', 200'.

Double marking

First I put a galvanized primer every twenty five feet of chain and at the 10 ft mark and the 290 ft mark (300 ft of chain). After that I mark using a system of red, white, blue for 25', 50' and 75' with green for 100', and then repeat the red, white, blue, yellow marks the 200' ft mark then repeat of the red white and blue. At the 10' mark and 290' mark I put all three of red white and blue to let me know I am at the end.

Of course the red white and blue sequence is easy for Americans to remember as it is the description of our flag.

I also put in the Imtra chain markers using the same coding. Have not had the same good luck with them. My chain is in the water for at least 120 days a year.

Marty

We also paint with white, red and bright orange colors. We have 300 feet of chain and start at 30' then 40 foot sections. When we reverse the chain, the marked distances are the same.

N4712 said:

I was looking at those. How many did you need and what incraments did you mark your chain at?

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We typically anchor in deeper water, so mark the chain every 50 feet and use a Red, White and Blue Pattern (3 reds at 50, 3 Whites at 100, 3 Blues at 150', repeat). It is eight feet from the windlass to the roller so is pretty easy to add extra chain once a marker passes to get the desired amount out.

Most boaters paint their chain and it works very well.

White wire ties every 25'. One at 25', two at 50', three at 75', four at 100'. Repeat. All chain.

Never had to replace any ties.

Bay Pelican said:

I also put in the Imtra chain markers using the same coding. Have not had the same good luck with them. My chain is in the water for at least 120 days a year.

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Hi Marty,

Did the chain markers fall out? How long did they last for you?
My chain is too rusty to paint, but I'll probably do that when I re-galvanize or replace it.

N4712 said:

Was wondering what the best way to mark anchor chain was, I've seen people using tie raps, spray paint, and both together. just wondering the best way to mark it. Also we'll be attaching the bitter end of the chain to a piece of Nylon 3 strand for emergency cutting.

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you might consider 100 feet of yellow poly instead of nylon...still cuts and if you cut it near the end, enough should be floating you can come back and find your anchor.

Maybe just me, we have quite a bit of chain followed by nylon, marked. I typically just look at the angle to know I'm where we need to be.

I mark my chain with red spray paint, but in only 2 places...50 feet and 100 feet. Never found a need for more markings.

My chain was pretty old when I bought the boat. I tried paint but it didn't last 2 years and we don't use marinas much so getting it out on a dock, cleaned up, primed, painted and thoroughly dried was a pain in the neck so I went to to tie wraps. We put one black one at each mark as the black ones seem to be tougher than the other colors and when we lose one we don't have to be in a hurry to replace it and don't have to guess where we are. White: 1 at 25ft, 2 at 50ft, 3 at 75ft, 4 at 100ft. Red: 1 at 125ft and so forth. We seem to lose one every few months but it is easy to replace as required.

N4712 said:

Was wondering what the best way to mark anchor chain was, I've seen people using tie raps, spray paint, and both together. just wondering the best way to mark it. Also we'll be attaching the bitter end of the chain to a piece of Nylon 3 strand for emergency cutting.

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Another one for paint. Only two colors though, white and yellow which work better in low viz situations. Mark every 50 feet. 1st 150' use white bands 1,2 and 3 bands respectively. Use yellow in the same pattern up to 300'. If you have 400' of chain mark the 350' mark with 4 bands alternating yellow white yellow white. If you are anchoring in deeper waters be prepared to spot paint the marked sections that frequently contact the bottom.

Via iPad using Trawler

cafesport said:

Another one for paint....be prepared to spot paint the marked sections that frequently contact the bottom.

Via iPad using Trawler

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When we have to remark in the middle of a season, we pull the first one or two marks put them in separate plastic bags on the foredeck and then get the spray paint out. The paint stays in the bag and it's a quick fix.

We attached a blue cable tie every 25 feet and yellow tie every 100 feet. Keep it simple. We also have noted that when "powering" out the windlass that it takes 15 seconds for 25 feet or 100 feet per minute....

We use alternating red, white, and blue at 10' increments. Usually lasts a couple of years for us before repainting. Normally takes about 2-3 cold beers on a sunny day to finish. Tried cable ties some years ago. After a few years the bottom of our chain locker looked like a multi-colored rats nest mixed with bits of mud, sand, sea weed and other detritus.

Scott

For some reason about half of the Imtra chain markers popped out and were lost within a couple of weeks. The others have stayed in for a couple of years.

Marty

N4712 said:

Was wondering what the best way to mark anchor chain was ...

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Don't know the "best way" but there are many colorful ways.

On the larger boats that I generally work on, depending on which naval society specs the boat is built to, ABS, Lloyds, etc etc we're required to have either five shots (450') or 500' chain, either way pretty much the same. We break the color coding down into five segments. The traditional coding is green to mark the end of the first segment, white for second, blue third, yellow fourth (acts as warning your getting near the end) and the last segment is in red, basically telling you to stop dropping the chain, your about to rip the shackle off the bulkhead, lol. So in reverse order is red, yellow, blue, white, green. The standard mimic to remember is "Rub your *alls with grease".
You can use the same coding with any length of chain/rope, just divide your length into 5 segments and mark accordigly. YMMV

Answer, any of the various colourful methods above - all nigh impossible to see at night, even with a light…or you could add in a chain counter. If I can install one on mine…anyone can.
Oliver, like a great anchor, a Nordy deserves a chain counter…c'mon…

http://www.cruzpro.com/ch55.html

I repaint the markings every 2 years. I've tried every paint possible and nothing lasts more than 2 years especially if you anchor a lot. I've been using metal primer and street marking paint for the last 2 applications (the spray paint they use to mark pavement) and I could be convinced that it lasts a little longer than anything else I've tried. But it's not great.

I like adding small colored wire ties too. They seem to last about 50 deployments but are simple to replace. It's funny how they all start to break at about the same time. I just replaced about 12 of them yesterday after anchoring a dozen times in November with none of them missing.

Peter B said:

Answer, any of the various colourful methods above - all nigh impossible to see at night, even with a light…or you could add in a chain counter. If I can install one on mine…anyone can. Oliver, like a great anchor, a Nordy deserves a chain counter…c'mon… http://www.cruzpro.com/ch55.html

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How are they installed, and I'll check them out.

We installed an Auto Anchor four years ago and love it. It does everything, you set how much chain you want out and push the button out it goes and stops. Push retrieve and it comes back in slowing down at a preset measurement then stops. Life is so simple, I love it..............

We adopted a very simple system so even I can remember it. Remembering a bunch of colors and which one represents which distance would never work for me. I'd forget it before I painted the last color. Also, I decided that 50' was all the granularity needed. It's easy to estimate +/- around 50' increments and be more than accurate enough to get the scope you need.

So the scheme is two colors; yellow on the 50s, and red on the 100s. Each time a red goes by you have paid out another 100'. When you see a yellow, it's another 50' on top of that. All you need to count are the red 100s, and even I can keep count of that.

If you don't want to count, you could paint the red in multiple bands to indicate how many 100s. However another advantage of not painting bands is that the marking still works when at some time in the future you reverse the chain, assuming of course that you have an even number of 100'

As this thread makes clear, there are lots of ways to do it. You just need to pick what you think will work best for you.

Bay Pelican has a chain counter, Cruz Pro. Same unit as Peter on Lotus. I believe they are Australian as well. Work well. Not difficult to install. Maintenance issue is keeping salt water out of the wiring connections that close to the anchor pulpit.

We also mark the chain. Thus when lifting anchor the Admiral in the pilot house (behind the wheel) can determine where we are in terms of lifting the chain by looking at the chain counter while I on the foredeck can generally see by the chain markings.

Using the chain counter I drop anchor from the pilot house while still behind the wheel and only go to the foredeck for setting the bridle.

Marty

Peter B said:

Answer, any of the various colourful methods above - all nigh impossible to see at night, even with a light…or you could add in a chain counter. If I can install one on mine…anyone can. Oliver, like a great anchor, a Nordy deserves a chain counter…c'mon… http://www.cruzpro.com/ch55.html

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For $237.00, you can't beat it! Ordering one now.

N4712 said:

How are they installed, and I'll check them out.

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Jeeze Oliver, I don't know what those weird 'hellip' quotation makes in there are from, weren't in my original post, but anyway, to answer your question, I just followed the instructions.
They are clear and simple. Three wires go from the reed switches and mounting on the winch near the gypsy back to the instrument at the helm. One for each sensor (which is a magnetic reed switch, you can see them side by side in the pics), and the ground. You put through it a measured length of chain. You can calibrate it in feet, yards, fathoms or metres from memory, and talking memory, once set, that calibration is in hard memory, so is not lost even with total power loss. The head is wired to nearby 12v supply via a fuse, (seen in pic).
The instrument head also gives voltage readout option, and several levels of red backlight.
Worked for me, but if you were unsure about doing it, it would be a breeze for the local marina sparkey, (electrical guy), and I'd certainly recommend you used one if you went for the more sophisticated auto out and auto retrieve types like the Auto-anchor mentioned above there by Mike (Rochepoint). Muir have similar available also.
Oh yes, one word of warning…unless they have beefed up the magnet they provide, as the original one I got rusted out and stopped triggering quite early in the piece, fit a bigger magnet, i.e. one about 8-10mm diameter and 10mm in length is good - ferrite types don't corrode so quick either, and are as cheap as chips. Just takes boring a bigger hole in the edge of the gypsy. Needs about 1mm clearance from the reed sensors, and epoxied in, (again see pics)

Peter B said:

Jeeze Oliver, I don't know what those weird 'hellip' quotation makes in there are from, weren't in my original post, but anyway, to answer your question, I just followed the instructions. They are clear and simple. Three wires go from the reed valves and mounting on the winch near the gypsy back to the instrument at the helm. One for each sensor (which is a magnetic reed switch, you can see them side by side in the pics), and the ground. You put through it a measured length of chain. You can calibrate it in feet, yards, fathoms or metres from memory, and talking memory, once set, that calibration is in hard memory, so is not lost even with total power loss. The head is wired to nearby 12v supply via a fuse, (seen in pic). The instrument head also gives voltage readout option, and several levels of red backlight. Worked for me, but if you were unsure about coin it, it would be a breeze for the local marina sparkey, (electrical guy), and I'd certainly recommend you used one if you went for the more sophisticated auto out and auto retrieve types like the Auto-anchor mentioned above there by Mike (Rochepoint). Muir have similar available also.

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Sorry i posted that before I looked closely at your pics, that's about as straight forward as it gets! as for auto anchor I don't need all that technology. I just want to know how many feet of rode I have out.

We have a Cruz Pro counter (actually made in NZ). We had a problem with the sensors and magnet and replaced them after 7 years but I found a useful standby is to know the distance per minute deployed. Then you can simply keep an eye on your watch when dropping the chain - ours is approximately 20m per minute. Obviously doesn't work if you have a free-fall windlass.