Enclosed Thimbles

[Brian Duff]

Renoir,
I understand your suggestion and see its benefits for minimizing chafe where a thimble wont work. Thanks for speaking up !
I will say that your comment on cleaning up the end link of the chain has a lot of merit. We always polish our thimbles on the bearing surfaces and make sure that all areas are smooth and friendly to the line as they can be.
I can imagine that the polyester line interface will minimize movement, but I often see the friction melting on both nylon and polyester knots after severe loading: such as when I have used various lines and the 'zepplin bend' to lengthen my anchor scope for very high winds or deep anchorages, indicating there is still movement and chafe and damage to lines where they are joined by knots (though obviously because of the relative lengths to stretch, not as much chafe as over a rough large thimble)
I have not done testing on this but still think that a well thought out thimble will provide the most secure, strongest attachment point, if all other considerations in the system allow it.