Good Afternoon,

After discussing with another AMEL owner before leaving NEW CALEDONIA early May 2019 for VANUATU I decided to inspect & possibly reverse my OEM SS chain. I also expected it to be a simple straightforward exercise but found ON CLOSE examination several links to be “pitted”. When aggressively probing the pit it was fairly easy to create a bigger hole. All the pitting/holes were in the welded part of the link NOT in the actual SS link. I was told that rewelding was the solution but I wasn’t comfortable that the welder would indeed cover every compromised weld so decided to buy a new chain. No SS chain available on the island so I purchased 100 meter galvanized chain. Since I have that galvanized chain I frequently have problems with the chain being twisted/bungled; jumping the sprocket on the windless (it is the right size link) as well as bungling up in the haws pipe. I do have the original OEM SS swivel & anchor but still frequent twisting creating problems when outlaying the chain; having to empty the sail locker, open the chain locker and then manually making sure the chain will feed thru the haws pipe. Very doable on a calm early afternoon arrival; extremely annoying when arriving @ night in bad weather.

I have the feeling that the SS chain is more slippery and therefore distributes better horizontally in the anchor locker when I weigh anchor than the galvanized chain which is piling up higher.

Since May I have now 3 times deployed the complete chain to give it a chance to “unwind” and then slowly bring it back in while pushing the first 30 meters all the way toward the back of the chain locker to make sure that the remaining 70 meters is not piling too high. It helps but still issues. I never had any twisting/bungling issues during the previous 1 ½ year with the SS chain.

I am now planning, when doing my 2 year maintenance in February 2020 in BRISBANE or maybe NEW ZEALAND, to go back to a SS chain.

Best Regards Teun

SV AMELIT  A54  #128

PORT VILA  VANUATU

October 10, 2019 13:59:43