Patented new Do-Ra Ratcheting securement delivers twice the length, making chain retensioning easier
Doleco USA, a manufacturer of lifting, sling and load-securing technologies, including the DoNova® PowerLash Textile Lashing Chain, recently introduced a patented DoRa Ratcheting Load Binder.
The new DoRa, which is 20% shorter than a standard load binder, fits into tighter spaces but expands to enable users to reach twice as far as any other. The compact size and extra length of the DoRa save users time and trouble, because they don’t have to detach and reattach chains when periodically retensioning cargo, Doleco said.
Load securement devices commonly slacken as cargo shifts during vehicle movement. Drivers are required to inspect their cargo and its securement before driving their vehicle and after traveling 49.7 miles (80 kilometers) from where the cargo is loaded. Periodic inspections also are mandatory when there is a change in duty status for the driver, the vehicle has been driven more than three hours or the vehicle has been driven for 149.127 miles (240 kilometers).
Regular retensioning of cargo securement chains is a repetitive task for drivers but is crucial to keeping loads safely anchored to their vehicle platforms. But the job of retensioning can become far more cumbersome when a load binder becomes completely retracted. Unable to take up more slack, the user must fully loosen the binder in order to disconnect the chain, extend the spindles for more tensioning distance and then reconnect to a new link in the chain.
Removing the chain from a load binder’s clevis hook for tensioning also can present safety concerns, because at those moments, cargo is no longer fully secure and can become unstable. Cargo instability is of particular concern with loads of logs, pipe and materials with similar characteristics.
“With double the tensioning length, our patented DoRa Ratcheting Load Binder virtually eliminates the time and effort needed to disengage cargo securement chains for retensioning,” said Ralph Abato, president and managing director of Doleco USA. “And by engineering the DoRa to be 20% shorter than standard load binders, it can fit in spaces others simply can’t.”
The key to the DoRa Ratcheting Load Binder’s compact size and tensioning length is its patented spindle-in-a-spindle ratchet configuration, the company maintained. The design allows the ratchet housing to be significantly shorter by enabling one threaded spindle to retract by screwing inside the other. When extended, the DoRa’s longer spindle length gives users twice the tensioning distance of other load binders, allowing users to start out with a tighter chain and perform multiple retensionings without the need to disengage the binder’s clevis hooks from its chains.
“The DoRa’s longer spindles enable drivers to reach farther, so less exertion is required to remove slack from chains during initial tensioning,” Abato said. “The longer spindles also mean more reserve length is available for periodic chain retensioning.”
Since the majority of cargo securement applications will involve steel chains, the DoRa comes standard with clevis hooks. However, the DoRa Ratcheting Load Binder also is designed to work as a system with Doleco’s DoNova® PowerLash Textile Lashing Chain, and for those applications can be ordered with a slip hook and keeper on both ends of its spindles.
Doleco’s fabric chain is made of high-performance Dyneema® fiber. Dyneema®’s high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) material is 15 times stronger than steel chain by weight, and up to 85% lighter—so lightweight it floats on water, Doleco claimed. The DoNova® PowerLash Textile Lashing Chain has low moisture absorption, is self-lubricating, highly resistant to corrosive chemicals, and 15% more resistant to abrasion than carbon steel. The textile chain is available with a working load limit (WLL) as high as 22,000 pounds, more than that of half-inch steel chains and just under the 22,600-pound WLL of 5/8-inch steel chain.