Anchors. I hate to do this but...

[Twister_Ken]

It's not a silly question because from many divers in the Med, their experience and photo's are of the anchor upside down, yet the boat holds. In my experience, no matter how I've tried, the chain when being lifted, wanders all over the place. The boats wieght has never reached the anchor. It is simply held there by the chain. Very rarley has there been any difficulty in "breaking" the anchor free. It just comes up.

My thoughts are simple. The anchor or brick is usefull in holding the first few meteres of chain in place, till the rest of the chain goes down. If the strain ever reached the anchor you would move, regardless of anchor type. The secret is chain on the ground, but holds no marketing power.Hence folk flog anchors.

Got a mate with an older, smaller, Sunseeker in the Med. His anchoring technique is to stop the boat and push the anchor button until all the chain has run out. That's it. Snorkel over it, and the anchor is buried under a pyramid of chain. Seems to work, at least on nice days.

 

[Woodlouse]

Got a mate with an older, smaller, Sunseeker in the Med. His anchoring technique is to stop the boat and push the anchor button until all the chain has run out. That's it. Snorkel over it, and the anchor is buried under a pyramid of chain. Seems to work, at least on nice days.

Thats not too far removed from my anchoring technique. Except I let the anchor free fall to the bottom, followed by as much chain as I think will do, plus a little more, then stick the engine in reverse to dig it in and happy days. I've never had to reset an anchor and have never dragged.

 

[RichardS]

Thats not too far removed from my anchoring technique.

I think these are actually very diferent techniques.

The first is basically just chuck a load of chain over the bow and let the weight hold the boat. The key part of Woodlouse's technique is the use of reverse to dig in the anchor, which I believe is the essential part.

In my experience, the idea that the weight of the chain, or even chain plus a 20kg weight on the end, can stop a boat of any reasonable size/weight drifting simply does not stand up in practice unless conditions (tide and wind) are virtually zero.

I have found on several occasions with the Delta (my previous anchor) that the anchor has not dug in. Despite having 5 times depth 10mm chain out and in virtually no wind (perhaps a 2 or 3 kn) and a very light current (not even noticeable when swimming), the boat just continues to drift back slowly for several hundred feet until the keel runs into the shore! The combined weight of chain and anchor must obviously be slowing it down but you are either dragging or you're not and even a slow impact with the rocks is not on my list of good ideas! It's OK if you are sitting on the boat having lunch but leaving the boat or getting some sleep would be foolhardy.

It would be interesting to see some real tests but I reckon that a 40 footer in even a gentle breeze and half knot current is going to need a weight on the end of the chain that is totally unliftable by a normal person out of the water if it is going to hold the boat by weight alone.

Just my thoughts - your's may differ!

Richard

PS I for one don't have any problem with Craig or anyone else posting their views on any subject they like. Just because they write it doesn't mean you have to read it or believe it!

 

[Slow_boat]

Has any one tried testing anchors against a similar sized brick?

A cruising buddy of mine anchored in the mouth of the Roach to watch the racing at Burham week. We and he often anchor there and have never dragged our CQR on either boat. On this occassion his anchor dragged and it was hell to pull up (by hand) he's drifted right across the river by then. When he eventually got it up we saw the fluke had snagged teh handle of a giant truck battery. So no, weight alone doesn't work.

BTW, my mate is very fit and was until recently was in a certain regiment but even he was on the last reserves of strength by the time he got the thing up. His legs gave up as he was returning to the cockpit, so it must have a pretty heavy brick!

 

[Twister_Ken]

There's a story in an early version of Peter Bruce's Solent Hazards about a guy who tried to anchor near No Man's Land fort. Failed to dig in and when he recovered the anchor, he found it had fallen onto and hooked into an old ammunition trolley. Presumably the gunners just heaved everything they didn't want over the side when the military abandoned the place.

 

[Woodlouse]

BTW, my mate is very fit and was until recently was in a certain regiment but even he was on the last reserves of strength by the time he got the thing up. His legs gave up as he was returning to the cockpit, so it must have a pretty heavy brick!

I would never own a boat without an anchor windless. Once my father hooked and brought to the surface and underwater cable in Dartmouth with very little effort. The weight of it took the bow down to about 1 foot of freeboard from three.

Edit: It was a manual windless by the way. Very little effort would not he a great statement if it was electric and the effort was all in pushing a button.

 

[Slow_boat]

Has any one tried testing anchors against a similar sized brick?

A cruising buddy of mine anchored in the mouth of the Roach to watch the racing at Burham week. We and he often anchor there and have never dragged our CQR on either boat. On this occassion his anchor dragged and it was hell to pull up (by hand) he's drifted right across the river by then. When he eventually got it up we saw the fluke had snagged teh handle of a giant truck battery. So no, weight alone doesn't work.

BTW, my mate is very fit and was until recently was in a certain regiment but even he was on the last reserves of strength by the time he got the thing up. His legs gave up as he was returning to the cockpit, so it must have a pretty heavy brick!

 

[bluedragon]

...has anyone experience of the Manson?

Sorry, but I can't be bothered to read all the preceding posts. I guess you have your answer somewhere, but yes I used one for two seasons in West Wales. If there's anything you'd still like to know, please pm me.
Cheers.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Thanks all.

Going to be a Spade bower and a Fortress kedge, with the Fisherman kept in case I ever need to drop amongst rocks or thick weed.

Now to try and track down cheapest sources.

 

[Ubergeekian]

It's already passed as far as Rocna and me are concerned.

Me too. Young Craig's constant denigration of other manufacturers' products is very wearing.

 

[Ubergeekian]

Ask pretty much any cruiser with a rocna about confidence in the product and you'll find plenty. Probably same goes for a spade or manson.

Ask any cruiser with any anchor about confidence in the product and you'll find plenty. How many cruisers, after all, would keep an anchor in which they had no confidence?

 

[Ex-SolentBoy]

Having just purchased a fortress anchor as my backup I went to the beach yesterday for some semi scientific testing.

My limited recollection of trigonometry calculated that 3:1 scope is about 19 degrees, and 5:1 scope is about 11 degrees.*

To simulate 3:1 I used a 3 metre rope pulled at shoulder height, the 5:1 at waist height.

I am sure there are some among us that will redo my calculations. Please let me know if I am significantly out!

Anyway, the FX 23 in wet sand ( the tide was going out so it was easy) set within a metre of where it was dropped every time. We started the pull from the front, the back, and the sides.

Once set we then kept pulling any walked in a circle trying to simulate a change of wind direction. It just slightly lifted, turned, dug in and kept holding. Very satisfying.

I am not sure how much force we applied. Certainly we couldn't get e anchor to release.*

Clearly I live in an area where anchoring is a major concern as, by the time I finished, there were six blokes pulling the rope. They seemed to find my experiment more interesting than walking their dogs.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Clearly I live in an area where anchoring is a major concern as, by the time I finished, there were six blokes pulling the rope. They seemed to find my experiment more interesting than walking their dogs.

Tee hee!

 

[Kelpie]

SolentBoy;2862716]Once set we then kept pulling any walked in a circle trying to simulate a change of wind direction. It just slightly lifted, turned, dug in and kept holding. Very satisfying.

So that suggests that it will reset under load... but what happens if you allow the rode to go slack during the simulated shift? Several sources suggest that this allows the rode to get caught under the shank and disable the anchor. Might be easier to simulate with a chain leader in place of the rope.

 

[Ex-SolentBoy]

So that suggests that it will reset under load... but what happens if you allow the rode to go slack during the simulated shift? Several sources suggest that this allows the rode to get caught under the shank and disable the anchor. Might be easier to simulate with a chain leader in place of the rope.

Actually, we dd try to foul the whole thing up by taking the rope back under the shank, but it just flipped over and reset. The only way we could stop it setting was by taking the rope through between the flukes and then around. I guess that would be an unlikely scenario but possible if you just dump everything on top of the anchor before it set.

 

[craigsmith]

Well it's a 15 lb (6.8 kg) Fortress, that's not a very small anchor to be pulling about in person on a beach - if you're gentle with it, and it's well set in nice soft sand, you're not going to see the behavior that can make them dangerous in the real world (and when it is least acceptable). Try veering the load then applying 500 kgf to it, and see what happens. Or just try setting it in hard sand such that its stock remains at the surface, and emulate a few 360s from the boat so the rode wraps and fouls the stock and shank. Etc.

I was looking at a 2005 anchor test in Voile magazine the other day. While not necessarily a very well conducted test, it's one of the few times when the popular aluminium anchors have been tested against each other.

They write about the same anchor, the FX-23 (in French): "...this is its main flaw: under a high tension, it puts the odds at dragging quickly without hope of recovery. Our tests on dense sand have given a holding of up to 1,100 kg, then a rapid skid without recovery. ...When it disengages, there is no hope of re-set." On a slightly smaller Guardian, "...If the behavior is identical, its resistance is lower. We only got 700 kg before it dragged quickly."

Conversely, the aluminium Spade A60 (4.5 kg, so quite a bit lighter still than the Fortress anchors) behaved much better, as we would all expect from a proper general purpose anchor: "This year again, its behavior is revealed as perfect. The anchor positions well and quickly burrows into the ground. ...A tension slightly under 1000 kg... For us, this anchor is the most universal of types..."

So that's quite a bit better holding power (on a weight-for-weight basis) in a proper general purpose anchor without the drawbacks of the old Danforth style. It's still weak and vulnerable to damage, and not as good as setting as the heavier steel version (for the sake of comparison) - but if you wanted a light weight aluminium auxiliary anchor, it should be clear which I would recommend.

 

[Kilter]

Clearly I live in an area where anchoring is a major concern as, by the time I finished, there were six blokes pulling the rope. They seemed to find my experiment more interesting than walking their dogs.

FWIW I have anchored on hard sand in the Conwy river and it hasn't shifted as the tide has turned...and it's a considerable tide too!

 

[Brian@Fortress]

Young Craig sure hates it when someone says something nice about another anchor, doesn't he? Kids these days!!

ANY anchor can bend when it is subjected to enormous loads, and during the US Navy tests, ALL of the steel Danforth anchors were destroyed, and this is what they said about the Fortress anchors in the test, word for word:

"The fact that the Fortress anchors incurred no significant structural damage at such high holding ratios suggests that the anchors have been extensively engineered from both the hydrodynamic and structural standpoints."

So Craig, cut the BS.....in your words Fortress is "weak and vulnerable to damage" ??? The US Navy kind of blew out that ridiculous opinion of yours, didn't they?

Find something to discuss that you know something about, and go deal with that much needed smackdown Manson gave you in another post at this site. Your anchors broke and had to be returned to shore during the RINA testing.....good grief.

Have a nice day,
Brian

Fortress Marine Anchors

 

[snowleopard]

Going to be a Spade bower and a Fortress kedge

I've had very mixed experiences with my Fortress kedge. Some of the Caribbean hurricane holes have a deep layer of liquid mud and I experienced dragging with the Delta. Instead I used my small Fortress on the soft mud setting (wider angle of shank to fluke) In English Harbour after a few days it had dug in so far it took me half an hour for get it to break out.

OTOH I needed to kedge off the shore in the Tamar when my mooring parted. I rowed the kedge out and dropped it in shallow water over firm mud. After 3 attempts to get it to set I gave up and used the engines to haul her off. I had a similar experience over a sandy bottom in the Caribbean where I could see it gliding across the bottom like a Manta ray.

 

[Brian@Fortress]

Snowleopard,

When anchoring in harder soils, please be sure to not have the angle set for soft mud, as the anchor is likely to simply bounce along the bottom as you described.

Additionally, please be sure to have the Mud Palms permanently installed on your Fortress anchor, as they will help it set faster in ANY type of sea bottom, and not just in mud.

Regards,
Brian

Fortress Marine Anchors