PRACTICAL
L
ast summer our
anchor slipped, but
not in the way you
would expect. We
were anchored in Loch
Eatharna on the east side of Coll,
a lovely natural bay with a pub in
Arinagour village at the head of
the loch. Out of the corner of my
eye, I noticed a couple of yards
of chain falling over the bow
roller: luckily we were still on
board when it happened.
The immediate situation was
easily resolved by attaching a strop
through the anchor chain and
lashing it off on the forward cleat,
which is something we should
have been doing all along!
For the rest of that summer we
had no confidence in our anchor
windlass, which now failed to haul
the anchor aboard. Each time we
set it, we knew recovery would be
a manual haul aboard: our boat
Sally is a 12.5m (41ft) Rival and our
anchor weighs 22kg, so this was a
task I had to hand over to my
husband. We try to make sure all
tasks aboard can be managed by
both of us in case of an emergency,
so relying on his superior muscle
power was not something either of
us felt comfortable with.
Once home and hauled out, we
unloaded the anchor chain from
the bow in preparation for servicing
the windlass. The anchor chain we
had been relying on was worryingly
rusty in places, so we contacted
our local rigger about replacing it.
He had only two questions for us –
‘How much do you want?’ and ‘Is it
10mm or 8mm?’ Easy! ‘60m of
10mm chain, please.’
Meanwhile, we got on with
servicing the windlass, a Lofrans
Tigress, using an excellent
YouTube video, and ordered a
service pack from Lofrans’ UK
distributor. The first step was to
release the gypsy wheel and strip
down the clutch. The Tigress has
an independent gypsy and drum
operation, and despite locking off
the drum with a line wrapped five
times and cleated, I could not shift
the gypsy wheel. Again we called
our rigger, who took a blowtorch
and hammer to it. That did the
trick, and I was able to strip
down both the gypsy and drum
mechanisms, cleaning up lots
of thickened grease which hadaccumulated on both sides of the
windlass mechanism. I replaced
this with nice clean silicone grease,
and did up the gypsy wheel tightly.
There were a couple of score
marks on the clutch drums,
but that wasn’t bad going
considering the windlass
probably dated from 1983.Loading the new chain
It was now time to load the new
chain. The boatyard staff forklifted
it over to beneath our bow
and, attaching the bitter end,
I started the windlass which,
disappointingly, still slipped. More
interestingly, the new chain did
not quite fit into the gypsy wheel
as well as the old rusty one had.
I measured the new chain link
diameter, which was indeed
10mm, but the new links seemed
ever so slightly shorter that the old
links. What we didn’t know, and
have since discovered, is that
anchor chains in Europe are made
to two standards, DIN 766 and ISO- With all chain sizes other
than 10mm, these two standards
are identical: our gypsy was built
for ISO 4565 standard and the new
chain was DIN 766, and therefore
each link was just 2mm short
of being a perfect fit. We would
have to either change the
chain, the gypsy wheel or
the whole windlass.
With the windlass still slipping,
there was nothing for it but to
remove the entire assembly and
take it to a workbench for a proper
inspection, where we discovered
that the central shaft was bent. We
needed a new windlass, then.
We had by now discovered a
new acronym, BOAT – ‘break out
another thousand’ – because in
our (short) experience as boat
owners most things appeared
to cost about £2,000, so a new
Tigress windlass at less than
£1,000 seemed a real bargain!
Fitting it was easy enough,
although the new Tigress was
rated at 1,500W, 500W more
than the previous one, so a
new higher-rated circuit breaker
needed to be installed in the
switch cupboard. We have since
anchored with confidence, and
will always use a strop on the
anchor chain to release the
strain on the windlass.The new windlass as fitted: the chain is a perfect fit in the gypsyGround tackle tackled
Lindsey Blow explains how investing in a new windlass and
anchor chain restored her confidence in her boat’s ground tackle
The old anchor chain...
...and the new chain, each link
2mm short of being a perfect fit