The Offshore Voyaging Reference Site

Chafe-Pro Review

Our chafe material of choice in the past has been to take old rags and wire tie them to the appropriate place on the dock line or mooring pendant. However, this tears (literally!) through a lot of rags, uses up a lot of wire ties, looks a bit disreputable, and takes some finagling to undo.

So we decided to look for a better alternative and, when researching chafing gear on the Internet, John came across the Chafe-Pro site. We ordered a few to try out and so far we are impressed:

JHH5-12377

  • The Velcro closures make it very easy to position the gear where we need it and as tightly as we need it.
  • We have used one on our mooring pendant, where it crosses the bow roller, through a number of gales and two hurricanes (as pictured above with our mooring safety chain system) and, though there is a bit of chafe showing on the outer covering, the inside layer is intact.
  • The soft outer cover means that the chafe gear itself won’t chafe on anything around it.
  • The large Velcro hook area bonds to the rope it is protecting, stopping the chafe gear from slipping out of place, meaning lanyards are not needed. (The wire ties in the photograph above are there because we were expecting a hurricane strike, normally we don’t need them.)

What do you use against chafe? Does anyone else have experience with Chafe-Pro? Leave a comment.

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Chris

Phyllis,

In 37 years of anchoring and docking, we have found, for lines, nothing works all that well and that everything works better if the line in question can be kept wet.

In this application water is a pretty good external and internal lubricant. It dissipates heat as internal line fibers chafe among themselves. If it is salt water, it is useful/important to keep things wet (crystals, don’t you know). Fresh is not an issue.

I’d pass on using water as a lubricant in freezing conditions.

Plastic hose, without some kind of lubricant is a line eater, but it is a subtle one. It can cause heat to build up internally leading to weakening and failure, and we have seen clear plastic tubing bonded to line by heat.

Where chain is concerned, we used to use fire-hose that we’d split and then punctured for tie lines.

Then a few years ago, we decided to experiment with sacrificial chain rollers. We used HDPE rollers wiped with dry teflon lubricant and now just use the fire-hose to protect other things from the chain. I tried PTFE grease, and it worked, but so did I cleaning up the mess. Also I didn’t like seeing gobbets of the stuff falling in the water.

Do keep the dry PTFE off lines though or you will sit there watching the line snake dance off the cleats.

Purely opinion, but we just can’t see the value added being equal to the mark-up in products like this one. Also our experience in the tropics is hook and loop fasteners = “sand magnet,” and once they are even a little encumbered by sand, we’ve had to add a safety tie for when they let go.

We seasonally turn things end for end and when anchoring shift the rode back or forth a few feet every few days.
C

John Harries

Hi Chris,

All interesting ideas for chafe prevention, thanks. However, we still like Chafe-Pro because it is an out of the box solution that solves a problem without a lot of our time and effort—all too rare in this game—freeing us to concentrate on other maintenance issues that don’t have such elegant and relatively inexpensive solutions.

On the hook and loop fastening. We have been using Chafe-Pro for 18 months with no degradation so far. I think the secret is that they are using industrial grade hook and loop, which is very different and much more robust than the lower grade used on most marine products.

Chris

John, Tis indeed a world of different folks, different strokes, Chris

susan alexander

I think you should try it before you knock it and if you had looked at the product you would know it can’t hold sand. The velcro is large and industrial strength. I am a veteran sailor and know good products, Chafe-pro works very well and I think you haven’t tried it. The cost is low.

Chris Freeman

Phyllis. A anti chaff method worth a try is a car radiator hose. These are particularly useful with mooring lines. You can get them with a 90 degree bend in them which goes neatly over a anchor roller.

Chris.

John Harries

Hi Chris F,

Interesting idea, although we are not really keen on using any type of hose for chafe protection because of the possible heating problem that the other Chris alludes to in the comment above.

If you want to use a DIY solution I would suggest some kind of heavy canvas that will breath and allow water penetration.

Dick T

John:
A small point…After my vessel was built several years ago in New Brunswick, my friend Scott in Maine, knower of all things maritime, suggested I launch a program of replacing all the WHITE wireties used through out the boat for electrical, hose runs etc. . The reason according to his experience is that the BLACK HDPE ties were far stronger. He was right. One by one, especially in the engine room, the white ones snapped and the replaced black ones have never failed. Must be a difference in plastic formulation.

John Harries

Hi Dick T,

Wow, who knew, although I can’t ever remember having a wiretie of any colour break in normal use holding cables. Having said that, black it is.

Stein Varjord

I have no actual knowledge of the causes, but I’ve noticed the same. White tie wraps fail much quicker than black. This seems especially noticeable where it is exposed to much daylight. Sun.

This makes me think it’s related to UV degradation. The black plastic will stop the light at the surface. The white plastic will let it in deeper. UV rays are filtered significantly by several types of material, but maybe not these plastics?

Another option could be that the colouring item in the plastic is changing the strength. As an illustration: Adding pigment to an epoxy solution, you need about 10% volume of white pigment and only 2% of black pigment to get a “saturated” fully covering colour. Meaning, the white epoxy mix has enough pigment substance to noticeably affect the strength properties of the mix. Maybe something like that?

Rick

Hi John and Phyllis:
Thanks for the many great articles and chaffe is always a good one. I would like your comments on this idea……
Here is how Bonnie and I handle it. We have a Slocum 43 of about 17 tons with 300′ of 3/8″ chain and a 30kg Spade anchor.
When the anchor is well set and the correct scope is out I then attach a 3/4″ twisted nylon snubber to the chain between the windlass and the bow roller. Then run this back about 2o+ feet to a cleat at the center of the starboard side. This is a clean run on our boat and the snubber does not touch anything except the chain and the cleat. This way the snubber does not go over the bow roller, only the chain does, therefor no chafe to speak of. When in a very strong blow similar to one we had in Calvi, Corsica, I attached a second snubber line to the chain and ran it down to the center, port side cleat. My next step, if necessary, would be to run these snubbers back to the cockpit primary winches but haven’t had to do this yet. I’ve now been using the same snubber line for about 10 years!
Let me know if you have any suggestions.
Merry Christmas and Hope you and yours have a Happy Holidays
Best
Rick

John Harries

Hi Rick,

A very interesting idea although I’m not sure I fully understand. Does the snubber run from the cleat to the chain outside of everything? If so, I guess the cleat is forward of the maximum beam point of the boat and on the toe rail? Otherwise would the snubber not chafe on the topsides? Also, does this result in the boat hanging at an angle to the wind? Not necessarily a bad idea, I might add. Or am I being thick? Always a possibility!

Merry Christmas to you both.

Rick

Hi John:
The snubber line runs inside of the toe rail aft-wards, over the deck, from the attachment point on the chain before it reaches the bow roller. On Aisling, the cleat in question is inside the toe rail and fixed to the deck at approx. max beam. This cleat is normally used for a spring line from the cleat and outside, through a fair-lead, to the dock. When there is strain on the snubber line, it is lifted off the deck a few inches.
John, I have emailed you a picture of my deck plan. Hopefully a picture is still worth a thousand words 🙂
Let me know your thoughts and suggestions.
Best
Rick

John Harries

OK, I really was being thick! Now I get it, the whole snubber is on deck without going over the bow roller or through a fair lead at all. (I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, since I did not even get it after seeing the drawing, but I get there eventually.)

Sounds like a great idea since there is no way the snubber can chafe and if you need to ease some more chain or slip the rode completely in an emergency, you can untie it from the chain easily.

Also, as you said in your email, if you wanted more spring you could lead it through a turning block and back to a cockpit winch making it, what?, 30′ feet long.

All in all, a very interesting and innovative idea. Although it would not work for us since we need to take the load off the chain where it goes through the bow roller so that the chain will not clank back and forth in the roller as the boat swings. The noise from such movement may not be a problem on a fiberglass boat, but on our aluminum boat, it would wake the dead!

That brings to mind one other thought: By having the snubber on deck the bow roller assembly is being subjected to the snatch loads of the chain without amelioration from a snubber. That would worry me, particularly if there was any sea running in the anchorage.

The only other suggestion I would make would be that your 3/4″ snubber rope might be a little heavy since lighter rope has more stretch and spring. On MC we use 5/8″ and we are a substantially heavier boat.

Rick

Hi John:
That’s a good point about the line size. Honestly I’m not 100% certain of mine and will check when I return. I do know that I can see the stretch with my method, so it is stretching.
Re the load on the the bow roller…… I’m not sure that is as big an issue because the snubber is still providing a slow, stretched, load on the chain on the roller.
As far as the noise, we still do get some but as you say probably not as much as on a metal boat.
I really enjoy your blog and check it almost every day, well done and keep up the great work!
Merry Christmas…. Rick

John Harries

Hi Rick,

Of course, you are right, the snubber will still relieve the snatch loads on the bow roller even though it is aft of it with your system. I seem to be having a real attack of the stupids on this issue!

And anyway, the bow roller and its supporting assembly should be able to take the snatch loads from the chain in heavy conditions in case the snubber breaks, no matter where the snubber is positioned.