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Old 07-08-2014, 07:04 AM   #42
ranger58sb
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City: Annapolis
Vessel Name: Ranger
Vessel Model: 58' Sedan Bridge
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 7,088
Quote:
Originally Posted by psneeld View Post

I had a lot of experience with Maxwells and Lewmars when I worked at a Sea Ray dealership and the rope/chain gypsies were just so finicky I promised myself to go all chain on my next boat....yet I do see some of the plusses of a combo rode...yet an all chain rode with multiple length snubbers and other shock absorbing means seems still the most simplistic for shallow water anchoring cruisers.

The all-chain rode worked well for us on the just-previous boat, but the mud here is such a pain to clean out of the links.... so our switch to combo was sort of a self-defense mechanism. Now it only takes me 20 minutes or so to bring the thing back aboard. Other wise, I'd probably go back to all chain.

We also had all-chain on the previous-previous boat for a while... but in addition to Chesapeake mud, I was the windlass... we had no washdown... and bringing up all that black mud by hand was even messier.

Anyway, the RC 10-10 chainwheel seems to work very well with our rode -- 5/16" chain and 5/8" 8-plait rope in our case. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the complaints about various windlasses, no matter what brand or model, are about the gypsy/capstan/whatever and how (if) it works (or not) with rope. Possibly complicated by the user, perhaps mismatching rope style (3-strand, double braid, 8-plait) with whatever the windlass manufacturer recommends for their various models.

-Chris
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