Twist in anchor warp / joining chain

[Paul_Garbett]

Hi, I have a three month old Southerly 110, built in Chichester by Northshore.

Standard anchor configuration includes 10m chain and 30m warp – I upgraded to 30 chain, so I have 30 chain and 30 warp. I have a S&L (Lewmar) windlass.

Problem is that I’m getting a lot of twist in the warp, and every time I use the windlass it gets worse. And when I say a lot, I mean a **lot**.

At present the anchor to chain connector is fixed, and I’m going to replace this with a swivel but this will not solve the problem, as the twist is between the bitter end and the windlass.

The windlass isn’t coping well with the twisted warp, so I was planning to swap to all chain, 60 meters.

However I’m worried that may make matters worse in so far as twisted warp is one thing, twisted chain another (in theory, the latter is impossible?).

I can, and will, put a swivel on the bitter end, but that will only assist when the whole lot is fully out.

Anyone got any thoughts?

Anyone else had a lot of twist in a anchor chain / warp / windlass combination?

Subsidiary question, anyone any experience of using chain links to join chain together. I’m thinking about (a) how do they cope on the windlass (Jimmy Green www site seems to suggest they work OK on windlass) and (b) strength of link.

Thanks in advance.

Paul

 

[Pye_End]

Is the warp 3 strand or octaplait / multiplait?

My guess is that it is 3 strand, and therein lies your problem?

C-link - you will find posts on this. Concensus is to find a good one as most now are cheap Chinese imports. I am still trying to find a good one in the UK, so if anybody knows then please post!

 

[paul_williams]

used to have this problem when i was a kid fishing with a trawlnet. the rope has a twist in it anyway, and when you put a load on it, it wants to twist even more. three strand is even worse. we used to alleviate the problem by paying the whole length out over the stern and towing it for half an hour, this works all the manufactued twists out of the rope. your still going to have problem though if your using a winch on three strand rope, especially if the ends are fixed and the twists have no way to work themselves out.

not the easiest thing to explain in text, but i hope you understand.

 

[GMac]

Rode twist - Probable causes, maybe one or a combination.

Cheap quality rope - Fix - use a good quality Type66 Nylon 3 strand. It does cost a bit more but will be worth it and it will out last the cheap ones by many years. Buying a cheap rope is usually false economy. They don't perform or last as well as good ropes. There is a very wide gap between good and bad ropes these days. Just because they look exactly the same does not mean they are performace wise. If your rope is only 3 months old I'm thinking this could be the issue. Some cheap ropes will only last this long, scary but true.

Rope pasted 'Used by date'. Old ropes, especially nylon, go hard and build a memory. This is all bad on a Auto winch. You could try washing in fresh COLD water then soaking for a day or 2 in fresh COLD water and some fabric softener. Fix - wash or new rope.

Cheap chain. Some cheaper chains are not well formed and can lead to a situation as described in the 'bow roller' section below. In the chains case the poor manufacture can make it roll one way all the time. Fix - use a good quality chain.

Spinner of an anchor. Delta, bent plows, most 'flat' anchors (danforth types), Sarcas are common ones. Fix - put a good quality stainless swivel onto or by your anchor or change anchor.

Dodgy bow roller. Have a close look at the roller to see if it has worn more one side than th other. Also closly watch your rode when coming up and see if it rolls the rode the same way each time. Fix - replace roller.

Shallow locker. If the locker is to shallow the rope does not have enuff room to 'flop' on retrieval and is still under the tension from coming out of the winch. Fix - make locker deeper. I'd do this after you have sussed everytjhing else first.

The 1st thing to do though is listen to Paul-F, post above, and next time your out committing boating pull your entire rode out of the locker and tow the rope behind the boat a while. This will give it a chance to un-wind. It could be a simple case of a twist being put in a while back for whatever reason and it has never had the chance to come out since.

Notes:
1, DON'T change to a octiplait as S/L winches don't run at all well on it, if at all usually.

2, The best 3 starnd Nylon we have found for S/L, Lewmar and Muir winches is out of Samson in the US. It is their 'Pro-set' series. Some of our early R2C rodes are 6 years old and still work (and nearly look) like new. The big downside is cost, it's near the most expensive we have found BUT IT DOES WORK AND LAST VERY VERY WELL. A bit of a case of how much are you willing to pay for years of good performance i.e a bit of $1 rope every 3 years or a $2 bit of rope that will last 10+ years sort of thing, hence my false economy comment above.

3, Polyester is not as good as Nylon for Auto winches.

4, Try to get a swivel like the 'Kong' (italian) type. The ones that look like 2 shackles bolted togeather are usually very dodgy in manufacture quality and rearly come up to published loads.
5, Don't use a Galv swivel, they rust up and stop working quite quickly.

Re C links - A good quality C link is perfectly fine. There are 1000's in use ever day. The key is getting a good one. Crosby make a very nice and strong one. Crosby is available worldwide so all you need to do is hunt for a Crosby person locally. Maybe try industrial lifting and materials handling type people as Crosby is strong in that area. Crosby also make the hi-load Green Pin shackles so if you see a pile of those ask the C Link question. 'Crosby' is a big Canadian outfit, part of the humungous FKI group and a top end quality manufacturer.

If you have 8mm chain get a 8mm C link and all is good, same applies to other sizes as well. Note: for a 8mm chain you may get a 5/16" C link (the problem when the entire world is not following the 'correct' US measurement system /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif ) but this is fine.

Here endth the small novel, I hope it can help in someway.