New Anchor Chain

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

There’s always cheaper options but there’s always strings attached to that as well... in this case weight at the bow and/or chain locker too small to take the length you want. I could never store 400’ of 1/2” chain in my locker and the weight would be a killer too

I've got plenty of space in my chain locker, which I can almost stand up in. Even in half of it - it's divided. There's room in there for 300m of 12mm chain. I would love to save the weight but reducing the chain to 80m and adding rope gets me almost to the weight of 100m of 10mm.

Reduced and doubled cost, not even considering the new gypsy, is not turning me on at the moment.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Yikes. I guess I'd better jump on the genuine Titan 12mm for £1200 including vat and shipping.

Looking that way, kind of difficult to justify £2700 to switch to 10mm. At £1200 for the Titan, you could add 100m of Acera on the end.

Just a thought, will the windlass lift the anchor plus 100m of chain in a straight lift if you drifted off a ledge into deep water?

Btw, last time we met I noticed the Red Jet fast cat is using what looks like Dyneema for the anchor line with a huge drum of it on the bow.

[Pete7]

Topical YT video that has just been posted by Juho. He is Finish and enjoys sailing Northern Norway during the winter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQa5bfGULXg

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by SV__Grace

Dockhead, I was impressed by a cruiser from Europe who had a combination chain/dyneema rode. He had 100' of chain and got the benefit of the weight and chafe resistance, and the dyneema was stronger than the chain, and being so lightweight he could have as much as he ever needed on the bow.



Personally, I like all chain and am willing to sacrifice performance to do so.



Before I upgraded to 500' of chain I routinely attached my secondary rope rode to extend the 330' of chain I had at the time for deeper anchorages, which actually was easy and worked well.

Dyneema makes sense to extend a rode and we’d like to do that ourselves, but only if you can attach a snubber or bridle to it, as you would for all chain. How do you do that with a Dyneema rode?

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Dyneema makes sense to extend a rode and we’d like to do that ourselves, but only if you can attach a snubber or bridle to it, as you would for all chain. How do you do that with a Dyneema rode?

I think the easiest way is to have set lengths, say 20m, with an eye splice at each end. These are cow-hitched together to form the Dyneema rode. The snubber can be attached to the eye splice.

Dyneema floats (just) so in some circumstances a small weight needs to be added.

We have a rode like this for our kedge anchor with the aim of having a very light, easy to deploy anchor from the tender in the event of an emergency. Unfortunately (or fortunately ), we have not used this enough to evaluate the idea.

The lightweight and floating nature of Dyneema can also be an asset for shore tie lines in some situations, so the same Dyneema rode has a dual function.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

I think the easiest way is to have set lengths, say 20m, with an eye splice at each end. These are cow-hitched together to form the Dyneema rode. The snubber can be attached to the eye splice.

Dyneema floats (just) so in some circumstances a small weight needs to be added.

We have a rode like this for our kedge anchor with the aim of having a very light, easy to deploy anchor from the tender in the event of an emergency. Unfortunately (or fortunately ), we have not used this enough to evaluate the idea.

The lightweight and floating nature of Dyneema can also be an asset for shore tie lines in some situations, so the same Dyneema rode has a dual function.

Sounds great, but how do you haul it in?

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Sounds great, but how do you haul it in?

Dyneema is slippery, but we have big anchor winch with a correspondingly big capstan. This allows plenty of turns over a large diameter so we can apply a reasonable force to the Dyneema.

If more force is required, the eye splices can be used.

Dyneema rode has some advantages and drawbacks so it will be interesting to see how it works in practice.

The big advantage is that it is so light that it’s very easy to row or even swim out an aluminium anchor or a stern line with this type of rope. I think it is in this application rather than as a part of the primary rode where Dyneema will prove most useful.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

Dyneema is slippery, but we have big anchor winch with a correspondingly big capstan. This allows plenty of turns over a large diameter so we can apply a reasonable force to the Dyneema.

If more force is required, the eye splices can be used.

Dyneema rode has some advantages and drawbacks so it will be interesting to see how it works in practice.

The big advantage is that it is so light that it’s very easy to row or even swim out an aluminium anchor or a stern line with this type of rope. I think it is in this application rather than as a part of the primary rode where Dyneema will prove most useful.

You can also take Dyneema with polyester cover, strip it where the splices go (use “trick” to quick-bury the cover inside the Dyneema core) and this will give you plenty traction and leave you with pieces of cover to use in other Dyneema projects. Of-course this adds to the weight and diameter again...

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

Dyneema is slippery, but we have big anchor winch with a correspondingly big capstan. This allows plenty of turns over a large diameter so we can apply a reasonable force to the Dyneema.

If more force is required, the eye splices can be used.

Dyneema rode has some advantages and drawbacks so it will be interesting to see how it works in practice.

The big advantage is that it is so light that it’s very easy to row or even swim out an aluminium anchor or a stern line with this type of rope. I think it is in this application rather than as a part of the primary rode where Dyneema will prove most useful.

I will look forward eagerly to the results of your experiences.


Of course Dyneema (or Acera) has a lot of advantages. I think for shore ties it might be just the thing, where otherwise you are looking at big volume and weight of material. For extending an anchor rode I would also think it would be brilliant, if only there is some way to haul it in.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

You can also take Dyneema with polyester cover, strip it where the splices go (use “trick” to quick-bury the cover inside the Dyneema core) and this will give you plenty traction and leave you with pieces of cover to use in other Dyneema projects. Of-course this adds to the weight and diameter again...

And cost, unfortunately.

[barnakiel]

Aber das ist super!


Only that the moment you have some minor mishap this Dyneema will end up in your prop. And now what?


Let alone handling a wet small diameter Dyneema.



No go.



barnakiel

[SV__Grace]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Dyneema makes sense to extend a rode and we’d like to do that ourselves, but only if you can attach a snubber or bridle to it, as you would for all chain. How do you do that with a Dyneema rode?

Great question, and as usual, Noelex and Jedi have great input (above). Don't tell them but in awe of those guys.

I found a previous discussion of using dyneema for rode here- https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...de-191436.html with lots of ideas floated by the same participants of this thread, the overall tone was not favorable.

The guy that I met was a world cruiser with a very well built boat, and he did not use a snubber. Lots of boaters don't use snubbers, especially when deploying lots of chain in deep anchorages, but the snatch loads would be jarring in shallower anchorages no matter how well built the boat, so I do prefer a nice long 30 foot snubber bridle attached to the mid cleats (so it extends 10 feet past the bow and won't drag on the bottom).

If the dyneema has a jacket/cover, a dyneema line grabber (like this) works well, especially when you use one long enough to wrap twice. I wonder if an icicle or klemheist hitch would create enough friction to work on bare dyneema, I haven't tried that (using small diameter dyneema leader, not nylon or polyester).

One of the concerns about dyneema is that it floats, and adding a kellet would be useful to help that as well as dampen snatch loads a bit (I attach my kellet with a line to the boat so I can control it's location when I have occasion to use it, usually when using my secondary rope rode to prevent keel wrap).

One interesting thing about my encounter with this European boater is that we shared a popular anchorage that was fairly shallow 15-20 feet, and we weathered several storms and a gale or two while there, but when it was calm I never saw his rode float to the surface. Hmmm... how did he do that?

It wouldn't take much wind and/or current to keep enough tension on the rode to prevent it from floating around, but in a calm, protected anchorage where you drift over your rode that could be a problem that even a kellet couldn't solve.

To attach a snubber to dyneema rode it's easy and pretty quick to make eye splices in dyneema so the suggestion to do so in 20 meter lengths or so then cow hitch them together is very doable.

I'll stick with my all chain rode, but as I mentioned, his setup was pretty sweet and it's a matter of trade offs to overcome challenges. Using dyneema gives you the strength of chain and more, along with chafe resistance, and overcomes the weight, space, and cost issue of long lengths of all chain rode.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Sounds great, but how do you haul it in?

More wraps on a winch or windlass. And just tailing it with low load is no problem - hand grip on 8+mm line is fine. Higher load means wraps when tailing.

I converted all of our 14mm polyester double braid reefing lines to uncovered 8mm Acera Amundsen lines, with lengths of chafe cover sewn on to protect at the reefed clew from the boom connection through the clew sheave/ring and past the boom sheave, and another length of chafe cover sewn on to hold the line in the jammers at the front of the boom.

With the polyester double braid 2-3 wraps are sufficient with a self tailing winch. With the Acera it needs 4-5 wraps to hand tail and 6-7 wraps to hold in the self tailer. Not really an issue.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by fxykty

More wraps on a winch or windlass. And just tailing it with low load is no problem - hand grip on 8+mm line is fine. Higher load means wraps when tailing.

I converted all of our 14mm polyester double braid reefing lines to uncovered 8mm Acera Amundsen lines, with lengths of chafe cover sewn on to protect at the reefed clew from the boom connection through the clew sheave/ring and past the boom sheave, and another length of chafe cover sewn on to hold the line in the jammers at the front of the boom.

With the polyester double braid 2-3 wraps are sufficient with a self tailing winch. With the Acera it needs 4-5 wraps to hand tail and 6-7 wraps to hold in the self tailer. Not really an issue.

Thanks, interesting!


So I guess a warping drum on the windlass might do it.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I used to consider the meatier material in 12mm chain to be a big advantage.


And then I discovered I can't regalvanise it. So that advantage goes out the window. If the chain life is determined by the life of the galvanising, then there is no reason for 10mm chain to last less than 12mm.

Why can you not Re Galvanize 12mm chain.. Have had it done twice already