My thanks to all. I took the advice nearly all gave and did the following: Dumped the chain. Disconnected chain from shackle attached to welded pad-eye in anchor locker Took 8 meters of 18 mm 3 strand floating line and looped it thru the last link. Not having the time nor the patience to spice the line together, I joined the two ends together using rope clamps with a shackle thru one of the lines. Sprayed the clamps with silicone spray and wrapped the whole gizmo in plastic stretch wrap to minimize the damage to the chain locker if the metal clamps were to come in contact with the sides of the locker. Then shacked the line to the pad-eye. Then tested. The 18 mm line, even when looped thru the last link came very smoothly out of the windlass, so smoothly in fact that I thought I did something wrong. Then, using the windlass, I got the line to go in smoothly. An unexpected benefit appears to me that my gypsy is sized for 18 mm rope as well as ½ inch chain. Did this five times. no hiccups. Then while the admiral brought in the chain (after painting it to mark the bitter end) I went into the locker to make sure the the rope / chain laid correctly. It appear to, on its own. Finished painting the chain to mark every 20 meters out and closed out the locker. Reinstalled the 30 nuts to the studs (of course one would not go on, so needed to use a die to clean up the threads, and of course it was in a place where the handle for the die could not be used.... so...) and turned the room back over the admiral for dressing. My thanks to all. My next two work items: See if I can get the anchor "door" (really just a plate) modified to work with "dogs" typically found on a water tight door, and then in the winter, find some 100+ feet of 18 mm rope, and attached it to the last link properly. My thanks to all who responded so quickly. Never saw the degree of consensus as I did in on this issue in any other recent issue so, thanks! Lee