From: "Nunas" <nunas@nunas.com> Warning, I'm about to mount the soap box <VBG>. The problem with this topic on other lists has been manifold. First, nearly all the respondents have never used a sea anchor or drogue, and I suspect that most don't even own either. Second, we keep getting the same dogma repeated as each inexperienced person passes on his or her favorite war story or quote from some manual. Just because somebody writes it in a book does not necessarily make it so! We keep getting sailboat information, much of which probably does not apply well to our boats, as most trawlers have much more windage and an entirely different underwater hull shape. And, finally, there seems to be constant confusion as to the role of the drogue vs. the sea anchor, possibly driven by terminology disagreement. Now, with that off my chest, here is my disclaimer. Although we have repeatedly rigged our chute and drogue for long passages, we have never had to use either and hope not to. On with my [less than experienced] thoughts...forgive me for straying from the original question, which really concerned chafe. _______________________________________________ Brian responded: Regrettably I've not had time to join this conversation on this forum, but I thought I might make a reference to subject thread on this same material I started recently at the BoatDesign forum website, Parachute Anchors, Para-Anchor, Sea Anchor <http://boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=10448> I might suggest that a few posters duplicate their postings on this other forum website and see what response they might get. I believe there are a considerable number of people participating on this forum. (regrettable I've not had time to continue even with my own thread start up)