Rope Rode - What Type (do you have)? What would you prefer?

[SSgtPitt]

Thanks guys, REALLY good conversation and you've given me an entirely new perspective on anchoring systems. I'm updating some equipment in July and I now have a better idea of what I need and don't need.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

... would be the sort of drogue made of webbing, in a cone shaped basket pattern. Don't recall the name at the moment. Thoughts?

Galerider. Formerly by Hathaway, Reiser, & Raymond, now by Landfall Navigation.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

Thoughts on the use of say Technora, Kevlar, or Vectran, etc. instead of Spectra/Dyneema, if one were to find it cheaply enough, for use as part of a series drogue?

Kevlar would be a huge mistake. It's flex life is limited, and I'm probably not the only sailor on this thread that has had unexpected failures. Technora is an improved version, but this still is not its best thing. Vectran I won't comment on.

The biggest problem with Dyneema, in my mind, is the lack of grip. If I were going to carry a JSD (I've used one but do no carry one), I think I would suffer the extra weight and bulk of polyester. Undecided.

I've never felt nylon failures were unexpected. It has a know fatigue life. Sudden failures are allays the result of design errors that result in repeated overloads.

The best use of kellets, IME, is to keep a rope rode down when the tide is changing. They help prevent keel wraps. As for use with chain, simply letting out another 10 feet of chain will do much the same (similar weight plus more scope); not useless, but less useful than it might seem at first glance.

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by thinwater

The biggest problem with Dyneema, in my mind, is the lack of grip.

You mean grip on the cones, or on cleats, or in retrieval, or where?

We had a spectra rode with polyester bridle. No problems.

with the cones I'm sure you know it is the braid compression/clamping that grips the cone tapes. With figure 8 knots in the ends of the tapes, they are not going anywhere.

With polyester bridle we have no issue with securing the drogue - we did have special high strength 'chainplates' on the transom to shackle it but never (that I remember) used them - either cleated or more often used the winches. Regarding cleating bare dyneema - we did quite frequently with shore lines (two of ours were long bare dyneema) and the tug boat hitch works perfectly - does not slip and easy to release under load if needed.

In retrieval would be the only place I could see a concern. The bare dyneema does not self tail (it will slip in the jaws), but generally self-tailing is not a super idea with a series as the cones might feed well, and it does winch perfectly well if hand tailed. You can attach 'puller lines' to bare dyneema with several of the good gripper hitches, they hold enough to hold the dyneema on retrieval loads (but not on max usage loads) - if you use the 'puller line' technique (which we did not) you might want to wait just a little longer for retrieval.

PS we used dyneema here just to reduce weight and bulk of the stored rode - it made a huge difference vs all dacron (we originally bought an all Dacron one and when I saw it in person I said 'no way' and we converted it to winter mooring lines and got a dyneema rode) , might be an important factor for some and not so much for others..

[estarzinger]

and, I have mentioned it elsewhere, but we really converted to using a 'short series' (eg 2 or 3 or 4 bigger drogues in series) design, rather than the jordan design (+100 smaller cones in series). We found it easier to handle and more robust and more flexible (in terms of the amount of drag we put out - although you could build a jordan in segments I have rarely seen it actually done.), while still maintaining the basic benefits of the Jordan design. (it is also a hell of a lot faster/easier to build).

There is some practical optimal number of cones, and personally I think it is rather lower than the jordan 150ish, but I dont know anyone other than us that has tried more than one but less than 150ish.

We also tended to use rather longer rodes than in the jordan design. Offshore waves lengths can be really long.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

and, I have mentioned it elsewhere, but we really converted to using a 'short series' (eg 2 or 3 or 4 bigger drogues in series) design, rather than the jordan design (+100 smaller cones in series). We found it easier to handle and more robust and more flexible (in terms of the amount of drag we put out - although you could build a jordan in segments I have rarely seen it actually done.), while still maintaining the basic benefits of the Jordan design. (it is also a hell of a lot faster/easier to build).

There is some practical optimal number of cones, and personally I think it is rather lower than the jordan 150ish, but I dont know anyone other than us that has tried more than one but less than 150ish.

We also tended to use rather longer rodes than in the jordan design. Offshore waves lengths can be really long.

Evans, that is very interesting. Could you elaborate a bit on size of cones and separation distance that you found to be good, please? I really hear you with respect to ease of building and stowage!

Jim

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Evans, that is very interesting. Could you elaborate a bit on size of cones and separation distance that you found to be good, please? I really hear you with respect to ease of building and stowage!

Jim

We did not do a lot of testing or theory on this - would be interesting to. We had an assortment of shore lines, mostly 300', and we had an assortment of single element drogues which had been sized to just drop our speed to under surfing (so most like one or so size smaller than recommended for our boat). These were a variety of designs from 'delta shape' to basket shape to cone, honestly did not see a lot of difference, but again was not really in 'testing' mode. I think the delta would be easiest to DIY reliably, but not 100% sure.

We would put one single element out on 300' and see how it felt, if we needed more we shackled on another on another 300', and repeat. Typically 600' and two elements seemed a whole lot better than 300'. Beyond that we honestly never had bad enough weather to really evaluate, but I am pretty sure in sydney to hobart conditions I would have felt better with 3 out on 900'. (250m wave length is not out of the question in open ocean)

The only important modification needed to standard single element drogues is a strop thru the center to shackle fore and aft rodes to. I am only aware of one mfg who does this 'standard' (the shark - I am not a big fan of the key guy there, but the drogue is a decent product). When you are using fewer 'elements' it is more important that their design stays 'open' and resists collapsing.

These were pretty easy to recover . . . put rode in self tailing jaws on primary's and grind away. They did not tie up a dedicated single purpose rode (as the jordan does), and they gave me this modular drag and length flexibility.

It worked well for us, better for us than the jordan series, but I can't say that we optimized it at all. I'm sure with some fiddling and testing many good refinements and improvements could be made to what we were doing.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Kevlar would be a huge mistake. It's flex life is limited, and I'm probably not the only sailor on this thread that has had unexpected failures. Technora is an improved version, but this still is not its best thing. Vectran I won't comment on.

In theory, I'm in concurrence on Kevlar. Though in practice I couldn't say, as I'm unsure if it's been used as the rode in a drogue much, & if so, to what effect/success. Twaraon (another aramid) might be a bit better.

The biggest problem with Dyneema, in my mind, is the lack of grip. If I were going to carry a JSD (I've used one but do no carry one), I think I would suffer the extra weight and bulk of polyester. Undecided.

For a 300' rode with an 18,000lb breaking strength, you'd need 10mm Endura 12 or Amsteel Blue. Total weight, 10lbs.
In a braided nylon you're looking at a strength equivalent line being 20mm, & weighing 50lbs+ dry. So double that, or more, wet. With polyester being maybe 20% less.

I've never felt nylon failures were unexpected. It has a know fatigue life. Sudden failures are allays the result of design errors that result in repeated overloads.

The best use of kellets, IME, is to keep a rope rode down when the tide is changing. They help prevent keel wraps. As for use with chain, simply letting out another 10 feet of chain will do much the same (similar weight plus more scope); not useless, but less useful than it might seem at first glance.

With regards to Evans's posts, there's some data on perspective drogue designs which can be connected together in series in the below link. Along with images & info on retrieving a series drogue. SetSail FPB » Blog Archive » Drogue Testing

Though the other thing which comes to mind for me, is why not connect several lengths of Series Drogue segments together, based on conditions? In 75' or 100' increments. Including various lengths of bare rode in between each drogue segment. With the obvious caveat that once they're deployed, you won't be adding more segments to the string of them while the weather is up.

Also, many of the multihulls in the DDB speak of having several types of drogues onboard, & using them according to conditions, & what they're attempting to accomplish with them at that time. Since in some instances they just want to take 3-5kts of speed off of the boat, & still be able to steer. While in others it's time to fully slow the boat as much as possible, & ride out the weather.
This concept seems to span something of the spectrum of boat sizes in the multihull case stories I've read on drogues. And, knock on wood, makes sense almost regardless of boat type.

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

With regards to Evans's posts, there's some data on perspective drogue designs which can be connected together in series in the below link. Along with images & info on retrieving a series drogue. SetSail FPB » Blog Archive » Drogue Testing

you may not know what I or Beth look like, but we were involved in that test . . . . I am the guy in those photos with the stripped long sleeve polo shirt, blue hat and big sunglasses and Beth is the one behind the stills camera

The drogue there with the pass thru strop is the shark I mentioned above, and I was the one who brought up the 'few element' concept for discussion.

As i said above, no-one has really developed/refined it since.

something like NER Vectran 12 (V12) might be interesting if you really thought dyneema was 'too slippery' (which I don't for that application) but it is even more expensive and is a bit heavier (and more UV sensitive but that is not a big issue for series rodes) I can't see it being a real world preference over dyneema.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

you may not know what I or Beth look like, but we were involved in that test . . . . I am the guy in those photos with the stripped long sleeve polo shirt, blue hat and big sunglasses and Beth is the one behind the stills camera

The drogue there with the pass thru strop is the shark I mentioned above, and I was the one who brought up the 'few element' concept for discussion.

As i said above, no-one has really developed/refined it since.

something like NER Vectran 12 (V12) might be interesting if you really thought dyneema was 'too slippery' (which I don't for that application) but it is even more expensive and is a bit heavier (and more UV sensitive but that is not a big issue for series rodes) I can't see it being a real world preference over dyneema.

Copy. Knew that you guys were in on the test. My apoligies if my manners lapsed in the above post by not saying as much. And yes, you as well as that prototype drogue are why I linked that page.

I'm sure that there's a way to design drogues which can be linked together in lengths of various numbers of series (components). And they may already be out there. Sure would be nice not to need to carry around an extra 300m of line dedicated only to drogues. Too much money, & complexity as I see it... until you really need it.

And yes, your thoughts mirror mine on vectran, mostly. Part of my asking was that I was thinking that if I found/find some of the stuff in good condition, cheap. That can be repurposed into a drouge made up of segmented sections, then it'd be worth snagging.

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

Part of my asking was that I was thinking that if I found/find some of the stuff in good condition, cheap. That can be repurposed into a drouge made up of segmented sections, then it'd be worth snagging.

yea, sure, if you found a super terrific deal, say from a program winding down, grabbing it would make sense. It is decent stuff.

but short of a terrific deal . . . . . Dyneema is cheaper, lighter and more uv resistant so has generally replaced vectran for many applications. The only place I see really vectran (rope) speced these days is for steering cables and such rope drive applications where its lack of creep is a significant advantage over dyneema.

[Snowpetrel]

Just remember not to use stretchy rode with a single element drogue, I had a horrific night once when we foolishly used a 50 meter length of 11mm climbing rope on a drogue mid Tasman. The combination of a short rope, not enough chain and lots of stretch caused the drogue to porpoise out of the water and fly 15 meters or so towards us before landing and snatching very tight as we surfed down the waves. We added a parallel long length of 100m of heavy shoreline floating warp which helped somewhat, but it still wanted to break out in the bigger waves and they tangled badly. A multi element should have been better as would more rope and chain, but it made me very wary of too much stretch in a drogue system.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Ben, My face hurts. And it’s YOUR FAULT, from the images which went though my mind when I read the above story. Said mental snap's had me laughing ever so hard.

I can just picture the relieved look you must have had when the drogue first deployed & dug in, disappearing from your view. And then to your horror, it reappearing while rocketing towards your head at Mach 6. Whereupon you were sure that the drogue was going to open up your skull like a sledgehammer on a melon. Then, to your (momentary) relief, it fell back into the sea at about the same time as the boat accelerated down a wave at 25kts. Causing you to be certain that you’d soon die from going down the mine. Only then the drogue grabbed again, slowing you, until it re-launched itself once more.
And this cycle must have repeated over, & over; terrifyingly. With you certain each time that either the boat would pitchpole, thus resulting in your watery death. Or that the drogue would launch violently enough to give you a cabriolet skull.
Priceless!

Not to laugh at your expense mind you.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

We did not do a lot of testing or theory on this - would be interesting to. We had an assortment of shore lines, mostly 300', and we had an assortment of single element drogues which had been sized to just drop our speed to under surfing (so most like one or so size smaller than recommended for our boat). These were a variety of designs from 'delta shape' to basket shape to cone, honestly did not see a lot of difference, but again was not really in 'testing' mode. I think the delta would be easiest to DIY reliably, but not 100% sure.

We would put one single element out on 300' and see how it felt, if we needed more we shackled on another on another 300', and repeat. Typically 600' and two elements seemed a whole lot better than 300'. Beyond that we honestly never had bad enough weather to really evaluate, but I am pretty sure in sydney to hobart conditions I would have felt better with 3 out on 900'. (250m wave length is not out of the question in open ocean)
How did you go about connecting the seperate sections together? As I'd hate to use a bow shackle, for example, & then wind up having the segments pulling on either leg of the shackle. And I'm not certain that I'd trust a Dyneema lashing for the task.

Obviously, winches with their fasteners tapped into the metal deck of an aluminum boat would be quite good at resisting such loads. Much more so than one's on fiberglass boats. Though I'm unsure if they'd be up for the challenge of holding a drogue in survival conditions. Comments???

And what kinds of conditions would have had you using your purpose built chainplates for attaching them to?

The only important modification needed to standard single element drogues is a strop thru the center to shackle fore and aft rodes to. I am only aware of one mfg who does this 'standard' (the shark - I am not a big fan of the key guy there, but the drogue is a decent product). When you are using fewer 'elements' it is more important that their design stays 'open' and resists collapsing.

These were pretty easy to recover . . . put rode in self tailing jaws on primary's and grind away. They did not tie up a dedicated single purpose rode (as the jordan does), and they gave me this modular drag and length flexibility.

It worked well for us, better for us than the jordan series, but I can't say that we optimized it at all. I'm sure with some fiddling and testing many good refinements and improvements could be made to what we were doing.

Also, was switching from one drogue type as warranted by conditions difficult? And how did you go about it? Since if things were truly bad, weather wise, then doing a "bald headed" change could be quite "exciting". Meaning first fully retrieving one drogue prior to deploying a different one.

Thanks! This info's great stuff. Just to learn, as well as giving one ideas as to what else might be worth trying & testing.

Ah, & one last thing. If you don't mind doing a bit of typing to pass on an explanation of something important. That being, how did you go about setting up your drogue(s) & bridle so that the drogue(s) would smoothly self deploy? And do so without maiming you or Beth, as well as some of your key gear aft. Such as your windvane, & other items mounted on deck back aft which could have easily gotten snagged by the drogue. Thus destroying it due to the drogue's high loadings.

[estarzinger]

How did you go about connecting the seperate sections together?

The rodes we used had thimbles on one end, and plain tail on other end. We just tied plain tail to thimble. Honestly can't remember exactly what knot I used - I think an anchor bend - but some sort of knot which minimized movement/chafe and I wired tied the tails down. Easy and never seemed to cause any problems. Today one might figure out how to use a soft shackle here, but this was all before softies became so popular.

Though I'm unsure if they'd be up for the challenge of holding a drogue in survival conditions. Comments??? And what kinds of conditions would have had you using your purpose built chainplates for attaching them to?

Yea, in the worst theoretical case, there was some concern that the winches would not be strong enough. Why we had the chainplates welded into the structure (they had their own ring frame and were rated to more than lift and shake the boat). But they were somewhat inconvenient to use (compared to the winches). If we had ever ended up in truly huge worst cast breaking waves (sydney to hobart storm like stuff) I would have used them, but we never found weather that bad.

Also, was switching from one drogue type as warranted by conditions difficult? And how did you go about it? Since if things were truly bad, weather wise, then doing a "bald headed" change could be quite "exciting". Meaning first fully retrieving one drogue prior to deploying a different one.

hmmm . . . . not sure you understand what I was describing. We did not 'switch' drogues, we added another on, and let out more rode. So, there was no need to do any recovery mid-storm. All we had to do was readjust the bridle (see just below)

That being, how did you go about setting up your drogue(s) & bridle so that the drogue(s) would smoothly self deploy? And do so without maiming you or Beth, as well as some of your key gear aft. Such as your windvane, & other items mounted on deck back aft which could have easily gotten snagged by the drogue.

We used a quite different bridle technique between our jordan series and our 'short' series. On the jordan we had a fixed permanent (dacron) bridle fixed attached to the (dyneema) rode - hook it up to the boat, and toss it over the back and all done and dusted - but was in no-way really adjustable (except side to side for emergency steering if using the winches rather than the chainplates).

For the short series concept we used a rather more flexible approach. We brought the main rode back to one side of the boat (cleat, winch, or chainplate) and icicle hitched onto the rode a spare dacron sheet at the right point and brought that to the other side of the boat. That formed our bridle. So we had the tail of the rode right on board and if we wanted to add another drogue we just tied it on to the end and added more rode and let it out. And when we wanted to recover we had the rode right there, just put it on the winch and cranked it in.

As to maiming beth and I, really the only thing to watch out for was to make sure you were not standing in any coils when you first put the end of the drogue in the water. Otherwise it was just a highly load line line many others on the boat and we treated it no differently - just with respect and awareness.

We did have a vane on our transom, but it was well inside the V of the bridle, and at no point was it rubbed or touched by the loaded lines. Never any problem.

Again, I am not claiming that any of this was the perfect/best way to do things. It is just what we worked out from our limited experiences. Seemed to work ok for us. But I am sure there are many ways it could be improved. The experience pool of people who have used drogues more than once in anger in big waves is unfortunately (or I guess fortunately) limited.