FAQ

Our view on swivels -

- If you are using a rope to chain anchor rode that has a 3 strand rope and not a lot of chain, say sub 25mts long, then fit a swivel. That helps stop twisting if a anchor is spinning. If if is does it the right (wrong??) way it can unlay the rope leading to the splice falling out which leads to Davey Jones getting another free set of chain and anchor.
- If you are using the same sort of rode as above but with a multi-plait rope then no swivel. Multi-plait is a non-rotating rope so the splice can't unlay.
- If you are mostly or all chain then again no swivel.

But, and this is the be read in conjunction with the above -

- If you are planing on spending an extended continuous time at anchor i.e. anchor up for a few days or longer non stop, then a swivel is worth thinking about, especially if you will be turned around a lot by tide changes. The Swivel should stop the rode twisting up as the boat swings leading to it shortening, pulling the anchor out maybe or just from the rode becoming a cluster fornication.
- If you have a anchor that keeps coming up backwards, a swivel is worth a crack, after checking a couple of other possible causes first or the swivel may just not do anything to fix the problem. Or you could fit a Anchor straightener which will solve that backwards problem. A anchor straightener is designed to force the anchor into the right orientation to come into the bow fitting correctly, they also swivel so no need to add one of those in as well.
What sort of Swivel? -

A good one with decent loads. Most boats forget their anchoring systems so anything that goes into them needs to last well and do so with little maintenance and checking. Yes we know all boats always check their gear (insert Tui advert here) but have found over the decades that statement is a tad bull excrement and things only get looked at when a problem or failure happens. So the swivel needs to last well. What we'd look for in a swivel -

- Not galvanised. Use it a few times then not for a month and you'll have a rusted lump that doesn't swivel.
- Use a Stainless steel swivel. Don't worry about the 'Dissimilar metals' bit as that is mostly just myth for the average boater. If you do intent to anchor for extended continuous durations then stainless is not good both for the stainless itself and for possible dissimilar metals issues.
- Just because it looks prettier than the one next to it doesn't mean it's stronger or better built. In fact some of the prettiest swivels have failed the most often. Don't shop on looks.
- There are LOTs of swivels coming from the east that do not meet the loads they say they do, some don't even get to 50% of what they say they do. Those are generally the type that looks like 2 shackles bolted back to back or 2 eyes bolted the same way, some of those are scary weak.
- Have a close look at the bolt/pin holing both ends of the swivel apart, if that's 8mm on a 10mm swivel then how is it a 10mm swivel??
- Have a Working Load (WLL) listed is fine but what is it's break load.
- Too many selling them don't know them, watch for that as who knows how accurate the stuff they are telling you is.

So our recommendation is fit a swivel if you have a shortish length of chain to a laid (3 strand) rope, if you don't have that don't fit a swivel and see how it goes. If you have a issue you can retro fit a swivel in a few minutes.

Comments based on decades in the game, having designed a swivel now extensively copied by China and is the base of many being sold today, having sold over 6000 swivels during that time, testing lots of them and seeing the results of shonky ones. Most importantly we have also spent a lot of time taking swivels out of systems to remove problems cause by them.

You only have 3. There is Maggi Catene SpA a top quality Italian manufacturer, PWB who manufacture damn good stuff in Aussie. Everything else is from China even if some is suggested to be from elsewhere (Editor's Note: The same applies in Aussie as well).

"I purchased my Excel anchor and chain from you a year ago for my Sun Odyssey 379 via ****** Marine. It is set up with a stainless steel twisted shackle and a stainless steel swivel, I am not sure whether you did this or whether ****** Marine did. I have been slightly concerned that this may not be ideal because there is little room for lateral movement on the anchor and I cannot check the internals of the swivel for corrosion. I would be interested in your opinion on the discussion in the attached web page. A lot of it seems to make sense and I wonder whether I would not be better to simply have one or two high tensile galvanised bow shackles on the anchor. At least then I can keep an eye on them.

I do spend quite a few nights at anchor and not always in sheltered waters. I would hate to wake up with the boat on a shore somewhere having only half of my loverly stainless swivel."

Answer:
Always a interesting subject.
We don't use twisted shackles so that must be ******** Marine. We have zero stress on that, ******* Marine aren't bunnies and tend to only use good gear. Swivel, could be one of ours, not too sure. Have a suss and see if anything is written on it, that should tell me which one you have.

Swivels -
- Important note No1 - If someone says 'Swivels are shit' that is the same as saying 'Humans have Green eyes'. Just like their is a large variation of humans there is also with swivels as there is with most products. Some of those products are good, some are OK and some just are shit. So you need to get more specific and say a 'XYZ Swivel is good/bad/ugly' if you want to discuss the subject properly or get specific.
- Important note No2 - Most articles are very generic, often use info gathered from here there and everywhere that suits the writers mindset or are extracted from manufacturers websites so are slanted in a way to sell or not, specific items. I see references in that editorial to a couple of outfits and people who have very little boating experiencing but are damn good at stealth marketing.
- Important Note No3 - there are more myths in anchoring than there is at a UFO Conference. Over the years I have spend a lot of time tracing these 'stories' back in an attempt to verify the source so we can ascertain what exactly happened. That's more fun than doing real work and does increase our knowledge. But I can track 99% of them back to the dude who's wife works in the cafe next to the lady who walks her dog with a cousin of the person it supposedly happened to. But find that person, Nope, they simply don't exist.
- Funny note No1 - I bet you a lot of cold beers (yes I'm that serious) that a large proportion of the people who knock swivels replace them with commercial shackles. Those shackles are untested, weak, produced by the gazillion for 3-5c each. But the people are happy with those yet not a swivel. We have seen that so many times it's ridiculous.

We have sold our design swivel (which is now copied by china, there's a bucket list one for you) for 15 years, a tad over 7000 of them. We have had 3 incidents in all that time. One was simply due to the dude not doing the pin up correctly, the other 2 due to we aren't sure but a new boater doing 2 in close time frame would suggest it was more him related than design or construction related. Our swivels have also been designed and built to exceed or chain which is a Grade 40 so 33% stronger than the usual. So you can get perfectly fine strong swivels. Can ours bust? Oh hell yes, it used wrong anything can. Has any of ours ever busted due to side loads? Not that we know of.

Yes some swivels are scary pieces of crap, some of those are sold on the NZ market even though they have had failure issues here in the past. A common one is sold here under a few varying brand names, they are weak, have poor fastenings and are arguably one of the problem ones that generate convos like this. There is the Kong swivel out of Italy and that's had a few recorded failures but then they have probably sold 10's of 1000's of them so even a 0.1% issue rate has to be a couple of 100. Is that to be expected? Yeap, most likely it is.

The Interweb input - The stories we see pop up we know simply aren't real or just a beat up. A few are genuine but many are something else rehashed into a new story that supposedly happened. Just last week I got a email from England asking if a anchor was structurally OK as the writer knew a mate who had a mate who had one that busted a month or 2 back, the writer attached a photo of a busted anchor. We have seen that photo being attributed to at least 4 anchor failures in 3 different countries, NZ not being one. One of the names in that editorial has apparently seen that very anchor fail, that person is related to another anchor brand and is know to 'amplify failures that will sell his product', to put it nicely. The kicker is I know for 101% total fact all 4, possibly more, of those failures did not happen and there is no way in hell that anchor dude saw the failure. Why? I took that very photo myself here in NZ years ago. It failed on dry land and it never made even near a boat. That situation we see too often. We used to try and correct them when they popped up bit it's like Whack-A-Mole and when you hit one 2 others seem to pop up, so we gave up and went boating instead.

Generally we don't advice galvanised steel swivels as once used when the boat sits for a few weeks the swivel rusts up and simply doesn't work any longer. With SS that's not the case. If you use the boat a lot then steel can be used as use keeps them moving.

We find many people use swivels as an 'Up sell' and don't actually know what they are supposed to be doing in a anchor rode. We also find many boaters asking for them as they saw one on there neighbours boat so assumed they needed one as well. We get a LOT of calls about anchor system issues that end up with us removing the swivel and the problem goes away. Swivels can easily cause issues in the wrong application. So we recommend this when asked 'Do I need a swivel?':

- If you are running all chain - No don't put one in.
- If you are running a Rope to chain rode using a non-rotating rope like a 8 braid or other multiplait - No don't put one in.
- If you are running a rope to chain rode using a 3 strand laid rope with a SHORT length of chain then - Yes fit a swivel.
- If you are running a rope to chain rode using a 3 strand laid rope with a LONG length of chain then - No we lean towards do not fit a swivel.
- If a rotation issue arises them a swivel can be retro fitted in 2 mins.

Lateral loading - yes that is something to keep in mind if you have light gear or are a distance cruiser or a hard user of your boat i.e. use it in adverse conditions a lot. That is easily got around by fitting the swivel to a shackle on the anchor or adding in a few links of chain (if you have the room) or by using a articulated swivel. But again as much as this issue is commonly thrown around the interweb the actual instances of it we have seen in real life or know for sure happened are real are minuscule. All of those instances were on Chinese made anchors which are known to have soft metals. We know a couple of those were due to stupid boating techniques more than a dodgy swivel. So again as spooky as it sounds it's far from common, a long long far from far but a good way to beat up things or to make yourself appears to be an expert.

After being in this game, and specialising in only this small section of the game for a few decades not to mention using them for may more decades I can say with confidence -
- A good well made swivel is perfectly fine
- A shit swivel is shit and to be kept clear of.
- Most who won't use 'weak' swivels use even weaker unchecked shackles and are happy about it, weird as that sounds.
- Many swivel stories are simply myth or rehashed or didn't happen and are only a re-manufactured story from something else.
- A lot of the interweb stories are either unsubstantiated myth or a problem being attributed to a multiple of differing incidents.
- A lot of the info on the web is manufacturers framing things as 'knowledge' when in fact they are simply stealth marketing to sell their own product.
- Anchor rodes have a lot more to fear from the users of them then they ever will due to dodgy swivels.
- Combine anchor system gear and the internet and you get more fairy tales than Hans Christian Anderson could ever dream of.

Suss yours to see what's on it, or send a photo and I can tell you what you have. But generally speaking if you have anchor to shackle to swivel I wouldn't be concerned, there is just nothing we have seen, that we can verify, that suggests we should be concerned even slightly. It maybe one of ours and if it is them we have tested them and in all the years we have not has a small one break below 4,000kg or just in 8,000kg on the larger one. Both of those load numbers are a lot higher than the equivalent size Chinese made anchor chain we know many who won't use swivels have.