Does anyone have any experience of using high tensile g70 chain and trading down to a smaller guage? From what I have read on www.morganscloud.com etc. 8mm x g70 is as strong as 10mm x g40 which means that either we could carry more chain or carry less weight. I guess it comes at a cost (don 't know how much) but is there another snag? Obviously we would have to change the gypsy too.

Simon

Thanks for your feedback. I have been digging a bit deeper and found a good review on the Rocna knowledgebase. Their comment on catenary is as follows, "Except in very deep water, chain and its catenary has very little effect on the ultimate performance of an adequately sized modern anchor. The chain 's effect on lowered pull angle and its shock absorption characteristics disappear in the rough weather when they are most required, and the anchor is best helped in other ways. More on this topic is found in the Rode optimizations and Scope vs catenary articles."

"It is not necessary to carry heavy chain merely for the sake of it. Rather, chain can and should be as light as possible, subject to strength requirements. Many boats could lose a large amount of weight by swapping to a lighter but stronger chain, and then investing part of that weight back into a larger anchor. Performance (holding power) of the system is thus substantially improved, while total weight is actually lowered. Find more, including recommendations for chain sizes, in the chain section".

Of course how much lf this is science and how much is gut feel is open to conjecture. i will keep researching for now.

The Rocna link is http://www.rocna.com/kb/Chain
And http://www.rocna.com/kb/Scope_vs_catenary