Monday, January 14, 2008

Ground Tackle (Anchor) Maintenance done

While we were here in the Rio, tied up to a dock, Dave sent the anchors and shackles off to Guatemala City to be re-galvanized. (It's very cheap here, and they do a good job with it). We got them back quite awhile ago but hadn't finished up the re-assembly.

Yesterday we unloaded all 300' of chain from the primary anchor, into the dinghy, and end-for-ended it. Dave filled the dinghy with fresh water so the anchor chain also got a nice freshwater bath. When we loaded it all back in, Dave re-attached the shackles and anchor so we're ready to go.

We also got to see how Dave's 'distributed chain' scheme worked. We have fed the last 100' of the chain through a PVC pipe underneath the V-berth and the cabin sole, down to a spot in the bilge, just forward of the mast. This is to distribute heavy weight low and in the center of the boat. It fed up through the tube just fine... needed a little hand tugging occasionally, but we didn't have any rock solid jams.

We had to hand-feed it back in, to get it to flake into the bilge area properly, so it will come out easily again. But it only took a few minutes to do that. We will rarely use that 100' of chain, but it's nice to have if we need it.

Everything's in good condition, this also verified that the Tigress Windlass is working great, too.

Another thing off our departure list!

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