Du Pont 'Kevlar' Mooring Ropes Perform Like Steel, Handle Better Than Nylon

Cables and ropes of Du Pont's high-strength "Kevlar" aramid fiber are replacing steel wire for some of the world's toughest mooring jobs.

Five times as strong as steel, pound for pound, rope of Kevlar is only one-sixth the weight of steel at equal diameter, with lower stretch than other synthetic fibers.

Groton Pacific, a firm that manages three large oil carriers, has for some time specified Kevlar as a synthetic replacement material in mooring tails and ropes on its vessels Hawaiian King, Hawaiian Sun and Hawaiian Monarch.

"These carriers require extraordinary performance and safety characteristics from a rope material," said Demetrius Panagopulos, technical director for Groton Pacific.

"We specified mooring tails of Kevlar because, relative to polypropylene tails, Kevlar has low elonga- tion, is stronger and lighter and is easier to handle," he added.

According to Du Pont, rope maintenance is another area where Kevlar outperforms steel. The cost savings is in the hours of maintenance on steel wire that are not necessary with the Kevlar rope.

The designer and maker of the lines for Groton Pacific says that mooring lines and mooring tails for tankers and other ships are ideal uses for ropes made of Kevlar. Such uses take full advantage of the many principal characteristics of Kevlar: high strength, light weight, corrosion resistance, low stretch, long fatigue life, weather resistance, chemical resistance and flexibility.

For free literature giving full information on cables and ropes of Du Point's high-strength Kevlar, Circle 56 on Reader Service Card

Maritime Reporter Magazine, page 68, Sep 1990

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First published in 1881 Maritime Reporter is the world's largest audited circulation publication serving the global maritime industry.