Third time's a charm...hopefully! Read below or watch our video.
This is the beginning of our second season with Sea Clef and this is the third time we've marked the chain.
How do we mark the chain?
The first time we painted with three different colours and patterns (one stripe, two stripe, etc). I couldn't keep the colours and patterns straight and the green we chose was too dark and I kept missing it. At the end of our first season, we got some snap in markers with five different colours. Unfortunately, they were a little loose for our chain and at risk of falling out. This year, I picked up some rust paint in the colours that matched the clips and we re-painted with Red (25 and 125 feet), Yellow (50 and 150 feet), Green (75 and 175 feet), Blue (100 and 200 feet), and White (225 feet).
We got a great idea from What Yacht to do, a YouTube channel of other Loopers that we follow. We cut some notches into cardboard boxes. Our chain was already measured and pre-marked, so we were easily able to line up all the same colour sections of chain and spray them separately in the boxes. This prevented overspray on the dock and on our boat. The process took most of the day as we had to wait for the paint to dry....
Why do we mark the chain?
We need to know how much chain we've got out when we anchor so we know that we have the right scope. Scope is the ratio of the length of anchor chain or rode, to the distance from your bow to the bottom of the sea bed. Ideally, you want somewhere between a 5:1 or 7:1 scope. Generally, when you're anchoring, you drop the anchor quickly so it's helpful to have a well marked chain.
If you want to improve your scope, you can add a bridle. In the photo below, you can see our bridle marked with yellow arrows, and you can see that the anchor chain marked with the green arrow is not putting any strain on our windlass. The angle is just a little lower, so our scope is greater.
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