andycass said..
Time to replace my anchor bridle and thinking of throwing the chain hook away and using a hitch or soft shackle instead. Looking for anyone's thoughts or comments.
Boat is a 30' wharram catamaran moored fore and aft in a tidal creek. Plan was to have two 5m 12mm nylon ropes, eye spliced around the bow beam going to a spliced eye with a thimble. Then joined by a shackle and then either a chain hook or a single length of rope for a hitch (rolling/camel/icicle/prussic/....) or soft shackle. Similar arrangement at the stern.
My current chain hook a wichard type has been known to drop off and also to reattach on other parts of the anchor chain forming loops.
So buy a better chain hook with a locking gate or trust my knots?
I assume that you leave a meter or so of slack chain behind the hook, and set the bridle short enough that the hook is always above the ground. I have always just used an open grab hook on the 3 cats that i have owned over a 25 year period and i have never dropped the hook. I don't know what is going on with your arrangement. I used to sometimes loose the hook when I was setting it, but soon worked out that you can keep enough tension on the bridle leg as you feed it out if you use a loop of line over one side of the bridle and feed it out as you drop,
Mantus chain hook
