Dealing with the Chain

Al was adamant about the need to untwist the chain, but in the meantime he thought of examining the gipsy wheel on the windlass, to see if it had anything to do with the slipping. When he dismantled it, we saw that the wheel had been badly eroded. First stop at Island Water World, to see if we could replace it, and get some free advice. Unfortunately they did not carry our particular part, but the advice was what we had thought; going to a deep part of the sea, and letting the chain loose, to get it turn freely around to untwist. Easier said than done!

We bought the part, along with a swivel to attach to the anchor, at Budget Marine. When we compared the two, it was a wonder that the old one was working at all. Al cleaned all the existing parts of the windlass, and installed the new one, unhooked the anchor, and took Ruyam II to 150 ft of water, just a bit off Belmont and stopped the engines. We let loose the chain, and started to drift in very strong wind and choppy water. The chain was so taught because of the wind pressure, it did not completely turn around. When I started to recoil it, same slipping persisted. A thought of holding the chain to help push it back, but it was dangerous to stick his hand in the middle. We thought of pulling the chain from the loose end, after it passed through the windlass. That did the trick, when Al lowered himself into the chain pit and pulled on the chain after it passed through the gipsy wheel, slipping stopped, and I was able to pull the chain easily. However, this does not seem a proper solution. We have no idea how to get rid of the twist in our chain. Maybe Grenada Marine will have a solution when we have RUYAM II on land in a few weeks.