Young's Modulus

This is a picture of our new installed nylon stretcher or shock line. The name says it all where it's for. A typical tow wire configuration (according the Dutch way of towing) consists of a long steel wire tow wire, a Nylon stretcher, a steel wire fore runner and preferably a chain bridle connected to the tow. All of these items, except for one, have the same characteristics; they are not very flexible. When you are pulling full ahead on a short wire and some serious seas and swell are encountered, you will understand that lots of shockloads may occur. All of them easily capable of breaking your towing connection. To prevent these shockload ruin your connection, a shockline or stretcher is inserted. Stretching constantly and solving the shockload problems the much stronger chain can't do. But beware; this nylon rope has a breaking strenght of 620 tons, so she won't give up too easily. This flexibility is a measure of stiffness of the material, also called Young's Modulus.