Side loading on Ultra Swivel (or swivels in general)

[Ultra Marine West]

Originally Posted by Michael Cobbe

We were in a bay in Greece when there was was a wind reversal three charter boats were washed ashore they all had swivels.

Neither the swivels nor shackles have positive or negative effects in the anchor performances. These three boats ideally need better anchors such as the ULTRA Anchor.

[Ultra Marine West]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Well, it depends on the anchor. I have spent 90% of my cruising life without a swivel, but for a few years I had a 121 pound Rocna which had a strong tendency to come up backwards -- because of the way it was balanced (no ballast in the fluke; roll bar adding weight above). I added a big Kong swivel and that made it possible to horse the anchor around with a boathook so I could get it into the bow roller.


But with other anchors, including Deltas, and various Spade anchors I've had, because of the good balance made by lead ballast, a swivel is entirely unnecessary. I presume the Ultra will be the same, as it appears to be balanced similarly.



As Jim Cate has recounted, I have always had good luck with grooved bronze rollers, which do keep the chain straight.

Unfortunately, that does not depend on the anchor only. I sold many ULTRA Flip Swivels to the Spade owners because they were suffering from upside-down anchor recoveries. That depends on the anchor design plus the whole bow arrangements. So you are on the lucky side here.


We worked so hard to solve that issue for all boats and made two design upgrades to be able to solve it, so we know that does not depend on the anchor design only.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Ultra Marine West

Unfortunately, that does not depend on the anchor only. I sold many ULTRA Flip Swivels to the Spade owners because they were suffering from upside-down anchor recoveries. That depends on the anchor design plus the whole bow arrangements. So you are on the lucky side here.


We worked so hard to solve that issue for all boats and made two design upgrades to be able to solve it, so we know that does not depend on the anchor design only.

Thanks for your detailed explanations, which are interesting.


I think obviously you are right that a well-balanced anchor is not enough for good performance without a swivel -- you are right that the bow roller has to be set up right. Also -- and very important -- the chain needs to be loaded onto the boat in the first place without a twist in it. We load new chains directly from the barrel with the windlass, carefully straightening it as it goes in. It's really important to do this, as once there is a twist in it, then the bow roller will not be able to straighten it out.


Then the bow roller assembly -- I guess there are probably several important geometric parameters. I can only comment on the roller itself -- rubber or plastic is not good -- you need bronze, which is hard enough to hold the chain in its groove. And the groove needs to be just the right size for the chain you are using, so that it grips the chain and holds it straight.


In my experience, if you get all this right, your anchor will always come up correctly -- with the sole exception of the case where you have been anchored in a changing tide for several days and the boat has spun around and around and has twisted the chain. But this is easily solved just by pausing with the anchor above the seabed, with no way on, to let it untwist itself.



I have so much confidence in mine that when I am single handed, I raise the anchor using the remote helm windlass controller without even being able to see the anchor coming into the roller. I just know that it will come up right side up and go in smoothly, and it does.



I use the HR Wichard shackles which are considerably stronger than the chain (even with the pin the same size as the chain), without being bulky. They are stainless so I'm a little bit afraid of crevice corrosion, but I replace them prophylactically every two years.

[Ultra Marine West]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Thanks for your detailed explanations, which are interesting.


I think obviously you are right that a well-balanced anchor is not enough for good performance without a swivel -- you are right that the bow roller has to be set up right. Also -- and very important -- the chain needs to be loaded onto the boat in the first place without a twist in it. We load new chains directly from the barrel with the windlass, carefully straightening it as it goes in. It's really important to do this, as once there is a twist in it, then the bow roller will not be able to straighten it out.


Then the bow roller assembly -- I guess there are probably several important geometric parameters. I can only comment on the roller itself -- rubber or plastic is not good -- you need bronze, which is hard enough to hold the chain in its groove. And the groove needs to be just the right size for the chain you are using, so that it grips the chain and holds it straight.


In my experience, if you get all this right, your anchor will always come up correctly -- with the sole exception of the case where you have been anchored in a changing tide for several days and the boat has spun around and around and has twisted the chain. But this is easily solved just by pausing with the anchor above the seabed, with no way on, to let it untwist itself.



I have so much confidence in mine that when I am single handed, I raise the anchor using the remote helm windlass controller without even being able to see the anchor coming into the roller. I just know that it will come up right side up and go in smoothly, and it does.



I use the HR Wichard shackles which are considerably stronger than the chain (even with the pin the same size as the chain), without being bulky. They are stainless so I'm a little bit afraid of crevice corrosion, but I replace them prophylactically every two years.

Likewise, you are obviously right that once everything is perfect from the balance of the anchor till the bow roller assembly, the upside-down anchor recovery is not an issue at all.

However, that is boating life where it is not easy to keep everything perfect so that the help of ULTRA Flip Swivel is mostly very highly appreciated.

We sell ULTRA Flip Swivels with a standard 5-year warranty as they are working pieces so that we can’t sell them pre-owned like the ULTRA Anchor. That is why I cannot offer the same test and buy the deal on them as the ULTRA Anchor. Still, if you want to give it a try, I can provide you with the same 25% you got on the ULTRA Anchor. This way, you wouldn’t have to replace your anchor chain connection for up to five years, which sounds better than two years.

[Ultra Marine West]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Thanks for your detailed explanations, which are interesting.


I think obviously you are right that a well-balanced anchor is not enough for good performance without a swivel -- you are right that the bow roller has to be set up right. Also -- and very important -- the chain needs to be loaded onto the boat in the first place without a twist in it. We load new chains directly from the barrel with the windlass, carefully straightening it as it goes in. It's really important to do this, as once there is a twist in it, then the bow roller will not be able to straighten it out.


Then the bow roller assembly -- I guess there are probably several important geometric parameters. I can only comment on the roller itself -- rubber or plastic is not good -- you need bronze, which is hard enough to hold the chain in its groove. And the groove needs to be just the right size for the chain you are using, so that it grips the chain and holds it straight.


In my experience, if you get all this right, your anchor will always come up correctly -- with the sole exception of the case where you have been anchored in a changing tide for several days and the boat has spun around and around and has twisted the chain. But this is easily solved just by pausing with the anchor above the seabed, with no way on, to let it untwist itself.



I have so much confidence in mine that when I am single handed, I raise the anchor using the remote helm windlass controller without even being able to see the anchor coming into the roller. I just know that it will come up right side up and go in smoothly, and it does.



I use the HR Wichard shackles which are considerably stronger than the chain (even with the pin the same size as the chain), without being bulky. They are stainless so I'm a little bit afraid of crevice corrosion, but I replace them prophylactically every two years.

We also worked on a bow roller design, and we are offering the ULTRA Bow Roller together with ULTRA Anchor and ULTRA Flip Swivel to make everything perfect from the balance of the anchor till the bow roller arrangements.

You are right that there are several crucial geometric parameters on the bow rollers, as well.

As per our studies, we came up with below ones for the ULTRA Bow Roller;

-We use “Delrin” on the rollers. They don’t deform in time, the delrin roller fits tight into recovered anchor’s body, preventing metal on metal scrapes.

-We don’t use “Groove” on our rollers because when the anchors come upside down, the groove catches the upside-down anchor shank and make it harder to flip on the roller. On the other hand, when you pull the chain in, it can come from all directions, so the grooves mostly don’t work as intended.

-We use wide chutes as possible. That is also critical for an upside-down anchor flip on the roller. If the bow rollers are too narrow, the upside-down anchor cannot flip on it. For instance, the bow roller in the video I had shared is a too narrow one.

-We use an inverted-U shape-retaining hoop limiting the anchor movements and keeping the chain on the roller at all times and preventing harm to the boat. It also minimizes potential anchor movement while cruising. For best performance, the retaining hoop should fit snug to the anchor. That is a very critical small detail. So if you don’t limit these movements, when you are recovering an upside-down anchor on a wavy sea, it might go off the bow roller and hit the bow of the boat.

-We use a unique system at the rear roller to push down the anchor shanks to take its vibrations and noises coming from it on the sea.

-Bow roller CHUTE material is 316L polished stainless steel, and bow roller CAR material is 318LN duplex polished stainless steel. Since the CAR takes sideloads, we increased its strength by using duplex.

-We designed ULTRA Bow Rollers as they work with one size bigger and one size smaller ULTRA Anchor so the boat owners can have three options, and they can choose the best one fitting to their boats.

[s/v Jedi]

Here’s the anchor roller design we ended up with after years of experiments. You need the center channel for the chain links and of-course the anchor shank can’t go in there because it is much wider. We found it best to maximize roller diameter (This is is 6” diameter) as everything works better on larger diameters.

The Delrin material has been great to us: the roller in the picture has been in use for 10 years. It seemed to have become a bit wider so while we’re using the backup roller (which is the same) I trimmed a bit off the ends using a table saw as I don’t have a lathe. We prefer black Delrin for better UV resistance.

Our anchor comes up backwards sometimes, but it turns right side up as it comes up onto the roller. I think this is much due to the anchor design, we have a Bruce.

[Ultra Marine West]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Here’s the anchor roller design we ended up with after years of experiments. You need the center channel for the chain links and of-course the anchor shank can’t go in there because it is much wider. We found it best to maximize roller diameter (This is is 6” diameter) as everything works better on larger diameters.

The Delrin material has been great to us: the roller in the picture has been in use for 10 years. It seemed to have become a bit wider so while we’re using the backup roller (which is the same) I trimmed a bit off the ends using a table saw as I don’t have a lathe. We prefer black Delrin for better UV resistance.

Our anchor comes up backwards sometimes, but it turns right side up as it comes up onto the roller. I think this is much due to the anchor design, we have a Bruce.

I am happy to hear that this roller is working fine for you.

Please take these explanations as general statements.

Your set up looks okay with the roller is wide enough, your anchor shank is thicker compared to the new generation anchors, so that chain channel doesn’t make a difference for your case.

When the roller is narrow and if you are using a new generation anchor with thinner shank, the chain channel then causes that problem.

For instance, see below roller. It is wide enough, but it has a crazy two-stepped chain channel design. I believe if you replace your roller with that one, you will start having the upside-down anchor recovery issue.

Once again, we worked so hard to solve that issue for all boats, so we know that it does not depend on the anchor design only.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Quadrille in JB

When anchored for more than several days in high current situations our chain becomes so twisted that it will jump off of the Lofrans windlass. Adding a Mantus swivel to our 22kg spade primary anchor has solved this problem completely. It also makes it a lot easier to deploy our chain snubber

You should have the chain loading a chain-stopper not the windlass.

[slug]

Originally Posted by Ultra Marine West

I am happy to hear that this roller is working fine for you.

Please take these explanations as general statements.

Your set up looks okay with the roller is wide enough, your anchor shank is thicker compared to the new generation anchors, so that chain channel doesn’t make a difference for your case.

When the roller is narrow and if you are using a new generation anchor with thinner shank, the chain channel then causes that problem.

For instance, see below roller. It is wide enough, but it has a crazy two-stepped chain channel design. I believe if you replace your roller with that one, you will start having the upside-down anchor recovery issue.

Once again, we worked so hard to solve that issue for all boats, so we know that it does not depend on the anchor design only.

Avoid metal rollers , they wear the galvanizing off the chain

Use the largest diameter roller on the largest diameter axle that you stem can handle

[Panope]

Originally Posted by slug

Avoid metal rollers , they wear the galvanizing off the chain

Use the largest diameter roller on the largest diameter axle that you stem can handle

I have used this ALUMINUM roller since 1982.

It does not wear the galvanizing off the chain.

Steve

[Cynara]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

The way this works is that the anchor chain is ordered with enlarged end links. The hardware in the picture is 3/4” diameter... my chain is half at 3/8”

Yes that is what we did, mostly because we used 5/16 high test chain and any shackles that would fit through the chain link were much weaker in strength.

New member so I be following an older post.