The snubber is used while at anchor with all chain rode, not for breaking loose or raising an anchor.
Terry Cox
Terry,
If you use one of the new gen anchors you will find that you will almost always need to "snub" or hook the chain to break it free from the bottom. There is no way I can break out my Rocna, in over 90% of my anchoring events, by hand. With my old CQR, sure, but not with my current anchor.
With any decent amount of chain, even a boat length, you would often need a way to grip the chain and "snub" it to break many of the newer designs out. Wrapping a chain around a cleat is not such a good idea so people often use snub lines or short snubbers.
Snubbers used with all chain rodes are significantly longer than a simple snub line as one would use on a boat with no windlass gypsy to wrap the chain around.
A snub line can be a short piece of line with a chain hook in one end used to snub the chain. It need not be any more than 12" long if you are only using it to break the anchor out, as you won't need the elongation or stretch. With an all chain rode snubber, used while anchored, you are looking for the stretch of the snubber to prevent serious shock loading.
I do not regularly use my all chain rode but on nearly every anchoring, in depths less than 80 feet, I need to break my anchor free by taking a wrap around my chain gypsy on the windlass then motoring forward over the nearly vertical anchor rode to break the anchor out. Doing this can be referred to as snubbing or making fast the rode and probably other terms I can not think of at the moment.
When you snub a chain, is that a device or just a procedure? Basically how is it done?
Scott,
Not to confuse but it can be both. The term "snub" as defined in Royce's Sailing Illustrated means to simply "check a rope suddenly". The Annapolis Book of Seamanship defines it as; "To wrap a line once around cleat or winch so most of its pull is absorbed.".
How ever you make fast the rode, or snub it, can certainly be deemed as snubbing. The device you would use to snub a line or rode can be called a snubber, snub line, chain stop, snub hook, windlass with positive locking mechanism or even a cleat. You don't have a windlass and I doubt a chain stop would fit the bow of a C-30 if I remember the layout correctly..
I don't think it necessarily has to be narrowly defined as used only with an all chain rode as you can snub any line or chain even ones not associated with anchoring. People snub dock lines all the time. I also snub my genny sheets around my winch when making sail adjustments...
My wash down pump is the ocean. I simply raise my anchor about 6 feet off the bottom then motor slowly, under 1 knot or so, out of the anchorage. Once clear of the anchorage I finish hoisting my anchor and nine times out of ten it is free and clear of mud. A bucket on a line and a rag work well too. I've had wash down pumps on boats but I invariably always seem to forget to flip the breaker on before weighing anchor and wound up doing the above anyway.
It was kind of like having a windlass and never using it. I think the only time I used the Windlass on my old Catalina 310 was on the day the new owner had the surveyor on-board to test it.....
