I broke an anchor chain!

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by Scooter980

Thank you all for your replies. I think I was off a bit on chain size estimate and it was at least 5/16 if not 3/8" 9 (or 8mm+). Anyway, I too think something was amiss when we got the boat. There were other things needing attention on this boat as well. It seems that they only have a few hours to get boat ready for the next clients and how could they possibly give it the attention it needs!? I am in the process of contesting the charge.

Good on ya, mate, good luck with it. Things are always difficult when you need a translator. Might be worth it to hire an English teacher from the high school to help you.

Ann

[AiniA]

Hard to imagine 12 year old chain used on a charter boat being in anything close to good condition. I think you have been had.

[a64pilot]

I agonized about chain size for awhile. Ended up with 5/16 G43, maybe should have gone to G70, maybe I will later.
However I kept asking and looking around for quite some time trying to find someone who had chain break or at least stretched it.
I could not find one instance, leading me to believe that chain is usually not the weak link in the system.

Now I didn’t say that chain can’t break, what I said was that good chain doesn’t break. What I am saying is that before it breaks, it stretches to the point of being stiff and unusable, then you know you were near the chains breaking point.

No, In this instance I’m betting to save a few $$, that sections of chain were stitched together with cheap links to form one piece of chain long enough to be used, and one let go.

Or I guess that maybe there is chain so cheaply made that it just breaks every so often?

I can’t imagine a chain having essentially any zinc left that can corrode to the point it just breaks, be a pile of rust in the chain locker well before that happens.

[JPA Cate]

In our usage, the galvanize kinda wears off, and then we re-galvanize. However, it is getting more and more difficult to source re-galvanizers, in general. It is not done at all in New Caledonia, to my knowledge. There are still places in Australia that do do it.

The chain on the boat in Mexico that I saw after the fact had not seen a galvanizer, and had noticeable wasting on it.

Like A64Pilot, we do not worry about good chain breaking, although we did have a joining link fail due to wastage last spring. Not seeing that beforehand, our error, and we check our joiner each time the chain goes out.

Ann

Jim adds: The joiner that failed did NOT break, nor fail under load. It was one of the high strength forged joiners, and the pins that hold the two halves together had been very hard to peen over. Apparently over a ~three year period, the peening had corroded away, and the link simply fell apart in the chain locker, under NO load. Imagine my surprise as I watched the bare end of the chain run over the roller and fall into the sea! DANG, I hate it when that happens!

I keep the two halves as a reminder of what can go wrong!

[hellosailor]

a64-
https://www.proofloadtesting.com/gal...of-chains.html
First page i could get to load from a Gargoyle search, no other particular reason for that one. But it is from a company that tests chain TO BREAKING and there's a picture (lower right) that clearly shows one link in a chain has broken--and the body the the chain looks perfectly good.
Of course it could be staged and all faked in order to sell their services, but isn't this why "PROOF" marks and "PROOFED" chain exist? Because the cheap stuff, like any cheap product, may have flawed welds? Every link is welded, any weld can be flawed. Heck, the oil pipeline companies won't hire pipeline welders unless they've got over 10 years of pipe welding experience, and even then they need to test each weld because they STILL get leaks from bad welds.
Anything can break. If it is from a reputable source, it is less likely to.

When the Brooklyn Bridge was being built 100+ years ago? It would have collapsed due to poor quality cable that was sent for the suspension cables. Fortunately that was checked and caught, rejected before the cable began to be hung. The problem of suppliers cheating on simple products like cable and chain, has been documented for a long time.

Who was it, Rocna? That found their Chinese manufacturing partner had made some changes resulting in a number of failures and a big kerfuffle, maybe just 2-3 years ago?

How many vendors REALLY can say they know beyond any doubt where their chain comes from, unless they are actually ordering it from a prime manufacturer?

[a64pilot]

Actually the Brooklyn bridge has the bad cable in it, the designer caught the crook and changed the design and added even more, good cable to make up for it.
I looked at the picture and while I don’t test chain for a living of course, I have stretched and broken everything from swing set chain to transport chain, which I think is G70.
All of it stretched to uselessness before breaking that I can remember.
The high quality G70 chain I believe would be more likely to break before deforming as it’s much stronger, meaning much higher tempered steel, the less strong BBB etc ought to be softer and deform more before breaking.
I don’t know about the chain in that photo, it’s much larger than anything at have ever used, perhaps the welded bridge in the middle has something to do with how it broke?