Chain & rope on Ideal windlass question

[John R M]

Our new to us 40 year old trawler has an Ideal CWM windlass. Our rode is 50' of 3/8" BBB chain and 3/4" 3 strand rope. Having no experience with how to operate a windlass, I attempted to retrieve the rope on the gypsy, with no luck. I used the drum with 3 wraps to eventually retrieve the rope. Unfortunately, the rope would not feed itself down the hawse pipe due to the offset and lack of sufficient weight.

The Shaefer Marine website states this windlass can be retrofitted with a combination gypsy, leading me to believe one gypsy could handle both the rope and chain. Other web searches seem to support this belief. However, the one person available at Shaefer Marine said there isn't a gypsy that can handle both. Jeff. the guru at Shaefer referenced in other forum discussions, is no longer with the company and is not reachable.

So my first question, can one gypsy handle both rope and chain? If not, what is the best way to handle this combination? Replacing the rope with more chain is not in this year's budget.

This is the only picture that I have showing the windlass.

 

[Mac2]

I’m guessing the PO didn’t anchor over 50 feet. Pull the rope in by hand until you get to the chain, then feed onto gypsy. Sounds like you need someone below to help flake rope in chain locker. I would use the money next year for all chain, instead of a new gypsy.