Wow! I spent about 20 hours over 2 days in the 90's working on what I thought was going to be a quick job. That doesn't include the almost 7 hours round trip from Ft. Pierce to Miami to pick up my new chain and rode, getting stuck in the express lane, making a wrong turn, and general traffic woes.
But, got the chain flaked out and marked, two white stripes at 10' to let me know anchor is coming up now, and a foot of color every 25' Red Yellow Blue White (Rub Your Booty Well). Cleaned the chain with white vinegar, then primed, then two coats rustoleum. Hope it stays on a while. Turned the boat in the slip without crashing into anyone (hey, I'm a 10 day boat owner but double hey, I have a bow thruster), and used the windlass to drop the old undersized chain/rode off onto the dock. Turned out I had 50' of 5/16" BBB of unknown provenance joined to 25' of 5/16" G43 spliced to another 50' or so of fairly nasty 5/8" 3-strand. The two chain lengths were joined by some sort of link that had almost rusted away.
Used a cutoff wheel on my cordless, a screwdriver, and my flip-flopped foot to cut off the rusty joining link and the G43 end link under the splice and re-purposed that 25' of G43 (looks ok for a year or two) joined to 150' 8-plait with a spliced in stainless thimble and a Crosby 209A 3/8" shackle and another Crosby shackle to the Fortress on the stern. Yeah I know, safety and all that. Wouldn't be the first time I've donated blood and flesh to a project, but hey it grows back, mostly.
Man, my anchor locker was nast-teee! Drain was well and truly blocked up, full of nasty, slippery algae. Almost came a cropper there, when unblocking the drain got stuck head down inside the slippery anchor locker and couldn't get up (cue 80's commercial). Luckily my GF was able to lever me out. Scary for a few moments. Not the way I want to go, be careful mates! (Probably a total newbie mistake). Anyway, now its sparkly clean!
I gave away the undersized delta and 50' of BBB and a rather suspect looking shackle.
Used the windlass to bring the new rode (anchor hitch to the pad eye in the locker) chain and anchor. The 25kg Rocna Original fits well, and rights itself properly, the new G43 (5/16" Acco domestic) ran beautifully as did the 8-plait and the splice. All that chain (200') does tend to pile up a bit though, and needed knocking down a bit. Hope it runs out as well as it came in.
I used .032" stainless safety wire to lock off all my shackles.
I did end up using two 3/8" Crosby 209A shackles back to back to mate up the G43 and the Rocna, luckily I had purchased an extra. I also made up a 25' snubber using a chain hook (the slotted type forget the name) and 25' of nice stretchy dockline. I'll keep that stowed in the anchor locker too.
Thanks for all the help, and if you see anything above I did wrong, don't hesitate to tell me. Rather be drowned that duffers and all that, right?
