Mooring pendant chafe guard

[chris95040]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

With stretchy line like nylon it is important to minimize the distance between the fairlead/bowchock and the cleat. You have a lot of distance there. The shorter the distance the less movement there will be at the chocks.

I think the simplest solution here, looking at your photo is to add another set of bowchock fairleads, sized properly to your mooring bridle rope diameter plus enough room for anti-chafe covering, within about a foot of the cleats on the top of the gunnel or cap rail. This will give you a fairer lead and minimize movement to a tiny fraction of an inch. Then basic anti-chafe covering affixed to the line near the eye would be sufficient for such minimal sawing motion at that point

In addition, I like to tie off my dock lines (that I leave cow-hitched on the pulpit ready all the time) in a basic full-belay cleat knot over the top of the eyes looped over the cleats. This prevents any possibility of the eye jumping off of the cleat while it is momentarily slack when the other bridle end is tight as the boat is bucking around. Belt and suspenders.

That’s really thought provoking, thanks for taking the time!

However it’s unclear to me that minimizing chock-to-cleat distance is going to impact how much motion is witnessed at the chock.

Won’t a given length of rope stretch a given amount for a particular tension? In that case, a chock placed anywhere along that rope will see the same amount of motion and (ignoring entry/exit angle problems etc) changing where the cleat and chock are relative to each other shouldn’t help in that regard.

No - that can’t be right. It clearly moves 0 inches at the cleat itself.

I guess the midpoint of the rope would see the most motion during stretch/unstretch, decreasing to the endpoints which see 0?

That’s not right either. I think I’m going to need to draw some pictures.

[DanielPerry]

Old fire hose can often be procured from the fire dept. for use as chafing gear. I think with any chafing gear the goal is to tighten it enough so the line doesnt move in the chafing gear, but the chafing gear moves with the line. I dont personally think you need spend hundreds of dollars on anything, I'd say make some chafing gear from fire hose. Also if you do this, it helps to have it secured to the cleat to keep it from working its way down the line.
Hope this was helpful! Sounds like a lot of good advice on this thread, but I wanted to give my vote to the cheap, "old" trick we use on the schooners here in Lake Michigan.

[Franziska]

One + for old fire hose. Works really great!

Originally Posted by DanielPerry

Old fire hose can often be procured from the fire dept. for use as chafing gear. I think with any chafing gear the goal is to tighten it enough so the line doesnt move in the chafing gear, but the chafing gear moves with the line. I dont personally think you need spend hundreds of dollars on anything, I'd say make some chafing gear from fire hose. Also if you do this, it helps to have it secured to the cleat to keep it from working its way down the line.
Hope this was helpful! Sounds like a lot of good advice on this thread, but I wanted to give my vote to the cheap, "old" trick we use on the schooners here in Lake Michigan.

[chouliha]

The key is to choose a method that stops the line that runs thru the chock from moving (nylon stretching) and even the fire hose which we have used for 35 years is a great way to help with chafe. But it does not solve the issue with the mooring line from moving back and forth from surge or wind gusts. If you can put all the stretching of the line outside or away from the boat is the best thing. That is why we have been using a length of dynema from the cleat to about 1' beyond the bow so all stretch in the line happens away from the boat & without any chafe. We have 1000's of days on anchor using the dynema method and in very rough conditions the 5/8" nylon snubber looks like a pencil but the dynema line does not move at all. Everyone has there own solution and this one works well for us

[chouliha]

Originally Posted by chris95040

Still not sure what you are using to attach the snubber to the dyneema, looks like a sheet bend?

Thanks!

Double sheet bend with a stopper knot tied in the end of the 3 strand just in case it slips

[chouliha]

Originally Posted by hlev00

If the Dyneema extension is smaller than the nylon part, I would be concerned about the Dyneema cutting through the nylon in rough conditions. I've thought about using a similar arrangement for a snubber / bridle on a monohull.


The Willard offering looks nice. They talk about the ability to use smaller diameter, but how small is safe?


Is this a legit concern?

We have not ridden out a cyclone with the use of our dynema / nylon snubber but it has NOT shown any sign or cutting thru the nylon line in over 1000 nights at anchor. We choose to use 1/2 dynema instead of a thinner piece. Hell we could lift the entire boat with the line LOL. We have ridden out some very rough conditions at the end of a 30 mile atoll with 5' fetch coming down (Yuk)

In addition we use dynema soft shackles to loop thru the cleats in the marina in Papeete. Its open to the swell from the NW and have been in there when the docks started to break up. Even though we had fire hose on the lines going around the cleat when doubled up it destroyed the fire hose and we blew up some dock lines. But since we switched to dynema soft shackles around the cleats and then attach the mooring line to the soft shackle we had zero chafe on either the dynema or nylon dock lines.

[Breaking Waves]

Originally Posted by chouliha

Double sheet bend with a stopper knot tied in the end of the 3 strand just in case it slips

That photo is actually of one of my old generation 1 solutions. The reason I used a sheet bend there is because the climbing line is quite difficult to splice. If you are using 3-strand (rather than climbing line) it would be better to use a spliced loop (in both the dyneema and the 3-strand) and interlink the two loops (girth hitch/luggage tag or whatever that is called). This would be both more absolutely secure (no slipping ever) and stronger (knots cut strength).

After about 5 iterations . . .I settled on using 8 plait nylon, with a spliced loop join to the Dyneema. Probably there are still pictures of that final solution around the net somewhere.

One note on cleating bare dyneema . . . it is slippery, and the typical cleating pattern on a shinn stainless cleat could slip around around the cleat in high load surgy conditions. A tugboat hutch works/holds better - was what i mostly used. Or you can put some dacron cover on the area that gets cleated which would eliminate the slipping potential.

Another 'design solution' is to have a second piece of nylon on the inboard end of the dyneema, and take that back some distance, like to a transom or mid-ship cleats. That gives you more elasticity with less snubber out over the bow - which is an advantage sometimes.

On Chafe protection covers . . . the old fire hose does work pretty well for being near free but there are better solutions (like https://www.samsonrope.com/chafe-protection/dc-gard/). One nice advantage of the braided dyneema chafe covers is that you can splice the cover ends into the rope you are protecting, so the cover stays in place, does not slide or move. It also does not trap heat, which has been shown to be a potential problem with fire hose over nylon (not a problem with fire hose over dyneema as in the application we are discussing) in severe conditions.