Suggestions welcome for how I should join my nice new Plough anchor and 8mm anchor chain onto its line, and what sort of line should I use. Some say nylon but I like fibre rope especially since it can be winched.

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Trek said..
Suggestions welcome for how I should join my nice new Plough anchor and 8mm anchor chain onto its line, and what sort of line should I use. Some say nylon but I like fibre rope especially since it can be winched.

Hi Trek, I used 8 plait nylon and it works in my gypsy ok, I just have to guide the chain/rode spice around carefully. The 8 plait has a softer hand and plays nicely into the chain locker. The nylon is good as it has quite a bit of elasticity, therfore reducing shock loading if it's blowing up and bumpy. I only have 30 meters of chain and the rest is nylon. In most my anchoring situations, all the chain goes out so the nylon rode is riding on the bow roller (no noise), I pull the nylon to a bow cleat to make it fast. If I need more shock absobtion, but not more rode out, I run it to either a midships or stern cleat in order to increase the shock absobtion. I followed a youtube splicing method that wasn't too hard to do and worked well (for 3 or 4 years now). i'll have a look and see if I can find a link to that still.

I use 8 plait nylon onto SS chain because it's downright pretty! My chain locker is open and the whole lot is clearly visible when standing in the forward cabin. The rope just lays perfectly and the SS chain runs very smoothly.

Thanks for suggestions, nylon it is. The best way to reliably attach it to chain is next.

Tony, a tapered back splice is how I have done mine, through the last link and then back on itself, goes through the windlass a treat.

Thanks all. I found an 8mm 10m chain + 50m 14mm nylon anchor line already made up on Ebay. With a very good looking splice. Those dimensions are the exact requirement for a 10m boat for cat3 offshore, so someone already knew the market

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UncleBob said..
Tony, a tapered back splice is how I have done mine, through the last link and then back on itself, goes through the windlass a treat.

what's your eyesplice look like?

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GybeSet said..

UncleBob said..
Tony, a tapered back splice is how I have done mine, through the last link and then back on itself, goes through the windlass a treat.

what's your eyesplice look like?

Quite neat and very functional. Untwisted enough and fed it through the last link, two strands from one side and the single from the other side and then did a regular back splice, five tucks then trimmed a bit from each strand, two more with the thinner section, thin again and one more tuck, after which clean any stray strands up and tidy with a flame to melt those last erant strands and the ends of the last tuck.