Calibrated Chain Conundrum

[oldgit]

Insurance(Craftinsure) have given go ahead on fixing damage to boat which includes replacing windlass.Had decided to upgrade windlass to electric as only couple of hundred pounds innit.
Then repairman ses have you got calibrated chain?.Cos yor gonna need it.
Err No say I........Umm lets stick to manual winch.
Sorry ses he,you gonna need it for new hand wind thing anyhow......
How much will you need.
50 metres mumbles me.
150 + VAT he replies.
Sigh........
Do we really need fancy new chain.Any comments

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[Talbot]

go for less calibrated chain and a lot of uncalibrated octoplait! (I have 30m of 10mm chain and 45m of 14mm Octo). This is because the normal anchoring I do in UK is in the shallow end (Cat!) so normally only use the chain. Deeper water would mean that there is no way I could possibly haul it up manually if I had more chain and the electrics failed.

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[tcm]

i haven't got calibrated chain. Just painting it will do fine i reckon, and has the advahntage of not being bustable. I hear from others that calibrated chain counters go wrong. But i wd def have lectric.

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[oldgit]

Think I will try old chain with new trickery winch and only buy new stuff if needed.
Surely only important thing is that chain does not jump out of gypsy?
Boat winch is in plain view and can see everthing dead easy as anchor goes into stainless holder.

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[jfm]

Is this post a bit mixed up tcm? I thort calibrated chain was chain that had been run thru a sizing device/press to make sure all the links are bent exactly to same size/shape, so it fits nicely on the gypsy. You seem to think calibrated chain is summink to do with measuring how much chain you have let out. Anyone know what's what?

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[sailorman]

How will "painting-it " make all the "links" the same size?????.
i.e "callibrated"


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[Talbot]

You will def have calibrated chain. However, dont get fooled by the statement "calibrated chain" from a swindlery. The chain has to be calibrated to the windlass manufacturer. Having just wrong chain will probably work 90% of the time, but when really needed in marginal conditions, the links may then jump of the gypsy, which might be construed as "not good"

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[tcm]

Re: doh. error here

ah. so normally then, anchor chain is cleverly made by a machine which somehow manages to make each link slightly different sizes. Weird. I didn't know that. I wd have thought that such chain is called "a bit crap" whereas wot they have done is sell the chain that is all the same size links as "calibrated".

What i THORT he was talking about was a chain counter thingy. They're the things that go wrong, AFAIK.

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[jfm]

Re: doh. error here

Correct. Total misnomer. It's not calibrated at all, merely sized. "Calibrated" sounds posher, so more margin I spose.

I am a bit surprised that uncalibrated machine-made chain, where the links are made and welded several times a second, is't already nearly perfectly sized without needing any fuirther process. In fact I spect it is, I bet these days "calibrated" involves no separate process at all, it merely mean "already reasonably sized" so we are all paying for nowt. I bet on modern machines they couldn't make uncalibrated chain even if they tried.....

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[Magnum]

Re: doh. error here

Surely it's all down to tolerance? Probably some EU directive behind it all no doubt.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.magnumyacht.net>http://www.magnumyacht.net</A> - Princess P42

 

[Wiggo]

Re: doh. error here

ooh, you cynic. The finest uncalibrated chain is hand welded in Peru by 6 year old children, wearing only knitted gloves and second hand RayBans. It is made from steel from ships scrapped on teh beaches of India, and costs over $2 per ton to manufacture (including the children's daily ration of Chicken McNuggets and E numbers).

Proper, marine Calibrated Chain is made in a run down factory in Wolverhampton, on a machine made by Brunel in 1857, and each link is hand inspected by a bored single mother.

<hr width=100% size=1>Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.