What anchor chain?

[vic008 17]

Chch here. Thinking 20m of 8mm chain. Getting quotes of $11 to $18. What to buy? Realise cheap not necessarily best.

[Island Time 1,235]

KM, the guru of all things anchoring, will answer you I'm sure. He Runs Chains Ropes and Anchors here in Auckland.

[waikiore 399]

PWB grade L or some of Km's Italian Maggi? Either of these safe, anything else don't do it.

[Guest]

Busy times.

 

In Australasia you have the choice of basically 4 anchor chains -

 

- Maggi AQUA7 - the strongest anchor chain in the world made in Italy. For 99.9% of us this is more a want than a need. If you ask me for it the chances are high I will talk you out of it. This is a Grade 70.

 

- Maggi AQUA4 - NZ's favourite made in Italy. This is a Grade 40 so at least 33% stronger than any of the below, over 50% stronger than many Chinese made ones.

 

- PWB Grade L - was NZ's favourite. The Grade L is another name for Grade 30. This is made in Melbourne and is good stuff, I'd happily use it myself.

 

- China - travels under the other tag lines like 'made to Aussie Spec', 'Industry Std', 'Canadian' and other marketing terms used to try and hide its origin and support it's often very highly inflated price. At best it's a Grade 30 bit some is a lot lower. It's all pretty much of a muchness but some are better than others.

 

Grades? - for the punter thats basically 'the strength'. Higher the grade the stronger it is. Using 8mm as an example.

8mm Grade 70 - min break of 7,000kg

8mm Grade 40 - min 4,000kg

8mm Grade 30 - min 3,200kg

8mm Grade 20 - min 2,400kg

So as we can see all look the same but are they............

 

If there is bugger all labour in making chain how do you make one of the oldest man made products cheaper to sell? Simple, either leave out some of the manufacturing processes or use cheap raw materials.... or both.

 

 

Some rules to remember when buying anchor chain -

 

- The price is no indication of the chains quality, some of the Chinadian (chinese sold as being Canadian) is being sold for more then the good stuff.

 

- IT IS VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT you get the chain that matches the gypsy on your winch. There are a few different 7, 8, 10, 12,13 and 16mm chains in NZ and in common use. That means different physical measurements, put the wrong one on your winch and it could cost you $1000s in repairs.

 

- Most people selling it don't know what they are selling. We often see people who have brought Italian or Aussie only for them to find out it's china.

 

How can you tell which is what? Often you can't so ask for a Test Certificate. If it looks like one your kid knocked up on a Excel spread sheet then it isn't one. A real test Cert will have material content, how it was tested, in what country is is made and a lot of god stuff. BUT sadly there are people in NZ selling crap using other peoples Certificates so watch for that.

 

Disclaimer -

-Yeap, I sell chain and lots of it. I stock and sell all the chains mentioned in this post (and a few others).

[wal 27]

.....and also has a weird collection of boat shaped garden ornaments........

[DrWatson 375]

Busy times.

 

- Maggi AQUA7 - the strongest anchor chain in the world made in Italy. For 99.9% of us this is more a want than a need. If you ask me for it the chances are high I will talk you out of it. This is a Grade 70.

 

KM,

 

Is that AQUA 7 available in 7mm? Given it's much strongerostiy, one could conceivably save a heap of weight, especially if one were looking at an all chain anchoring system, no?

 

I assume there'd be quite a weight saving in going from 8mm to 7mm on 100m of chain...

 

R

[Guest]

Yeap 100mts of 7mm would save you 35-40kg over 100 of 8mm.

 

A7 in 7mm is a No, not at this stage.

 

While the weight saving is good when moving it does mean less weight on the ground when stopped. The US tend to run huge anchors and tiny chains, some call it the Dashew Theory. He had a massive anchor and I mean massive, with a relativity small chain (which was a AQUA7) to the boat. The thing most don't factor in is that his boats are low and skinny, slightly larger than your average pencil so they wouldn't put much, if any, pressure on a anchoring system so he can run a unbalanced system and never really find out if it's good or bad. But in going to the lighter chain he did have to use a anchor many kilos heavier than those boats using a balanced system. Get a chunky kiwi boat and the game changes. But down here we tend to run balanced systems where the chain and the anchor work together to help each other do better.

 

So while dropping sizes is defiantly worth the thought, it doesn't always save weight as most who do that up the anchor size and carry anchor buddies (killets) to help offset the lack of weight on the ground, which negates the smaller chain.

[Kevin McCready 83]

I guess the Dashew system is less damaging to the seabed.

 

I can envisage a new system where the need for elasticity to avoid shock loadings is handled by specialised fibres, perhaps linked inside protected links so they don't chafe. Then good bye to anchor chains.