Bavaria 42 Anchor Well

[patprice]

My 1999 Bavaria 42 AC "Penelope" has a problem with the anchor well. When I bought the boat she had 50 metres of 5/16 (8 mm) chain fitted and all was good, but not enough chain for Med. style stern to anchoring.

 I added a further 20 metres of chain and now on retrieving the chain piles up under the winch and can jam. Tightly! Causes bad situations. Can knock chain pile over with a stick but surely that should not be necessary as the locker is huge. Just the wrong shape!

See the picture of my winch. The problem seems to be that the chain drops against the rear wall of the well and heaps up. I would like to make an arrangement so that the chain drops into the middle of the well. Has anyone done this or have any ideas?

[AFRiCA]

I have experienced the same issue. Have read articles where by a  plastic traffic cone is located below the gypsy in the anchor locker which apparently successfully spreads the chain out and stops it piling up in a heap.
I have also investigated raising the anchor winch to deck level which would triple the volume of the anchor locker and would hopefully eliminate the annoying problem.

[Convergence]

Have same problem on my 2001 42 cc.  I just live with it.  Raising the anchor until chain castles, knock it down and go on.  All chain (150 ft, 3/8 BBB). I do allot of anchoring and since I have to go forward to secure the anchor in the roller knocking down some chain does not seem to much extra work.  Of the remedies I have heard of none have worked all that well.

[IslandAlchemy]

Just get your arm in the well and push the pile of chain over every so often.