Is titanium too brittle for chainplates?

[Taniwha]

Hi all,

I've been looking at titanium to replace our 46ft Peterson yacht's chainplates, and have noted the positive attitude to it as a material by Brion and many others.

However, in reply to a posting I made on our owners' forum requesting any 1st hand experience, I got the following response from one owner:

"Beware of titanium. Before retiring I was an helicopter pilot and one the
helicopters I flew had a rotor head made of titanium. You can imagine the
tremendous forces applied to this piece of titanium by heavy blades turning at
360RPM, centrifugal forces around 10 tons for each blade.
This rotor head was very light (due to the use of titanium) BUT, and this is a
major drawback of titanium this metal CANNOT receive any blow, in which case it
would develop internal and invisible cracks, unknown until the piece breaks...
To avoid this we had this titanium rotor head coated by a ~1/4 of an inch thick
soft moulding looking like rubber, this "rubber" coating being intended to
absorb any possible blow by a tool or any foreign object.
I believe that all equipments on the deck of a sailboat will receive one day or
another a blow from a solid piece of equipment (tool, anchor,...) and in these
conditions I'll never trust titanium as material for chainplates."

I'd be interested in any comments from knowledgeable people on the above comment. (Brion?)

I've trawled the web, and of course titanium manufacturers expound the positives, and various other chat sites claim doom & gloom (generally not about sailing uses), but I don't feel that either of these sources are totally trustworthy.

Hopefully here you guys are mostly just interested in what works, without a commercial bias, so your inputs would be very welcome.

Thanks,
Paul.