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Old 04-09-2010, 02:12 AM   #21
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RE: Chain Rode

IN Cape May NJ we pulled cable discarded by the Coasties that was heavy enough to begin to take apart a 1/2 inch NEW nylon line .

The trip line held , so we were able to disengage our 60 lb anchor , a big buck item.

We use a red 10 inch floating ball and nylon trip line that does not float.

Its a poor dink indeed run blind at night that would be harmed by a collision with a rubber ball!

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Old 04-09-2010, 06:33 AM   #22
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RE: Chain Rode

One other reason the trip line is good is in a crowded cove where everybody is anchored with a main and a stern line its nice to have an idea where the neighbor's hook is, we anchored in a pretty narrow cove last summer with chains that are set into the rock walls that were used to hold log booms that er use tom stern tie. The benefit is double in those places... they tend to have lots of old sunk snags and logging cables strewn on the bottom. As long as the trip line doesn't float who cares about a small buoy float.
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Old 04-12-2010, 09:44 AM   #23
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Chain Rode

I have been trying to decide the best anchor combo to use. I have come to these conclusions.
*
The drawbacks of an all chain-chain rode outweigh ( no pun intended )its benifits.
The most obvious is weight. When stored in a bow locker, chain adds a lot of weight in the last place you want it, at the forward extremity of the boat. One hundred feet of nylon rope weighs between 3 and 15 pounds depending on diameter 100 feet of chain for the same appliction weighs anywhere from 50 to 100 pounds.

In light winds an all chain rode produces a catenary to provide a perfectly horizontal pull. In a 25 to 30 knt wind chain will straighten out and become taut. Under heavy loads the effective pulling angle will increase and as a consequence the holding power will decrease. At the same time the rode is deprived of its asbility to absorb shock loads the straightened chain does not stretch therefore has no elastic give. the net result is that a violent jerk from a pitching boat has a good chance of breaking out the anchor.
" Old salt skippers who continue to insist on an all chain rode should select the strongest possible deck gear and equip there first aid kit for whiplash treatment. Even in light winds if a swell developes an all chain rode can transmit via dynamic shock loads a serious jolt and tugs on the anchor and the deck hardware.
* When subjected to these repeated loads, the ground tackle is likely to break at its weakest point, which might be the deck hardware, the chain or a connecting shackle.*

*The ideal anchor rode will absorb and mitigate such stress loads rather than transmit them undampened from boat to anchor.

What is best?
*A rope chain hybrid.*

Most of these comments were from Alain Poiraud The inventor of the spade Anchor and the results of 6 years and thousand of anchorings.

*


-- Edited by skipperdude on Monday 12th of April 2010 12:21:20 PM
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Old 04-12-2010, 05:36 PM   #24
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Chain Rode

Quote:
skipperdude wrote:

When stored in a bow locker, chain adds a lot of weight in the last place you want it, at the forward extremity of the boat.

In light winds an all chain rode produces a catenary to provide a perfectly horizontal pull. In a 25 to 30 knt wind chain will straighten out and become taut.

Even in light winds if a swell developes an all chain rode can transmit via dynamic shock loads a serious jolt and tugs on the anchor and the deck hardware.
These are the three items in your post I'll comment on.* While there's no question an all-chain rode is considerably heavier than a combination rode, whether or not this weight has any effect on the trim of a boat depends on the boat's design.* In a GB36, 200-300 feet of chain (we use 200' of*3/8 chain) doesn't seem to effect the trim of the boat at all.* We've had it off the boat a few times for marking or cleaning*and the waterline at the bow, while it obviously has to be different, was not different enough to be obvious.

But a boat like Carey's lobsterboat is much more sensitive to trim than our GB of the same length, plus his boat is a planing boat (if he wants to push it that fast).* So weight in his bow is far more critical than in ours.* SO an all-chain rode up in the bow could be detrimental to his boat's performance, which is why he uses a "sort-of" combination rode with some 80 or 90 feet of chain and the rest nylon.

Chain, unless it's too light for the windage of the boat, should not straighten out under a*30 knot wind.* This is about the maximum wind strength we've anchored in so far, and with 170' of chain out in about 25 feet of water, there was still a lot of catenary left in the chain.* And that was with two boats hanging on our anchor (the other one was a*sailboat however--- not so much windage as ours).* I suppose if one had a very short scope out 30 knots of wind might almost straighten it out, but one probably wouldn't have*this short of a*scope out if the wind picked up like that.

Again, there are a lot of varables--- windage of the boat, strength of the wind, size of the chain, amount of chain out, depth of the water, etc.* So it's very hard to come up with a hard and fast rule about how a particular rode will act.* Most powerboaters I know in the PNW, and a few sailboaters if their boats are large enough to accomodate the weight, use all-chain rode.* Some anchor manufacturers like Rocna recommend using all-chain rode with their anchors although that does not mean they won't perform well with a combination rode.

We have anchored in conditons when the bow was pitching up and down, sometimes rather violently,*and there was no shock whatsoever transmitted to the boat with our all-chain rode.* The catenary acted as as shock absorber plus we have the snubber bridle to act as an additional shock absorber.* Plus we let out a very long loop of slack chain between the bow roller and the chain grab plate the snubbers are attached to.* The result is a lot of weight the boat has to pick up as it pitches and this dampens out any shock.* We get far more shock transmitted to the boat when we're tied up to a park dock and there are waves coming into the bay.



-- Edited by Marin on Monday 12th of April 2010 06:43:41 PM
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Old 04-12-2010, 06:45 PM   #25
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RE: Chain Rode

Seems to me that all chain has so many durability advantages that if you can handle the weight, the pluses outweigh the negatives. Like Marin, we use a snub line - in our case a 1/2" 3 strand about 40 feet long for the 1/2" G4 chain. If I was going to sit out a hurricane I'd up the size of the snub line, but stretchy is better than otherwise. We also drape 50 feet of chain down in a loop for extra weight. I think the most wind we have experienced at anchor was 50 knots, and I don't really remember any shock loading at all. Chain is perhaps more important in the NW since there are so many rocks that play the devil with nylon rode.
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Old 04-12-2010, 07:18 PM   #26
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RE: Chain Rode

Quote:
Marin wrote:While there's no question an all-chain rode is considerably heavier than a combination rode, whether or not this weight has any effect on the trim of a boat depends on the boat's design.

But a boat like Carey's lobsterboat is much more sensitive to trim than our GB of the same length, plus his boat is a planing boat (if he wants to push it that fast).* So weight in his bow is far more critical than in ours.* SO an all-chain rode up in the bow could be detrimental to his boat's performance, which is why he uses a "sort-of" combination rode with some 80 or 90 feet of chain and the rest nylon.
__________________________________________________ _____________

I've found the above to be the case as related to my boat.
If I had a boat that weight in the bow was not a factor, I'd definitely have an all chain rode. When running at sea, however, you want the bow to recover as quickly as possible. (Coming off a big wave, etc.)
*
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