Braid for Anchor Rode

[sailfree]

I understand a warp to chain splice is the preferred method for 3 strand rope. I'm planning to switch to braid. Is the eye splice over a thimble the best way to attach a braid rode to the anchor?? Thanks.

[Silkie]

...to attach a braid rode to the anchor??

Was this just a slip of the keyboard or are you really planning to do away with chain altogether?

If you are in fact extending your anchor chain with rope why choose a braided rope? I have 30m of 12mm octoplait spliced to 30m of 0.25 inch chain and this works well for me. I don't have a windlass and the main consideration for me is that the octoplait makes a neat splice which runs easily through my narrow hawse pipe.

OTOH hard eyes with shackles make it easy to quickly extend your anchor rode though I believe that the rope can have a tendency to twist out of the thimble under heavy load.

To answer your question though - Yes (probably)!

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply. No I was not planning to abandon chain. I was just going to replace the 3 strand portion of the rode with nylon braid. Braid is stronger, stows better (no kinks) and is generally nicer to handle but since it is not as easy to splice as 3 strand I was just wondering if anybody had a better method to attach it to the chain than the traditional eye and thimble. Thanks again.

[Nick]

I think you must mean the 8-strand nylon known variously as octoplait, multiplait or anchorplait.

This is very nice to handle and easy to splice to chain. Either 12mm or 14mm will splice nicely to 5/8 chain - I would prefer 14mm I think.

To see how to do it look HERE

You can get 14mm multiplait from a seller on Ebay for £1.40 a metre, which is an extremely good deal. Seems like good stuff - I bought 50m from him. Check it out HERE