Buck Turgidson
Well-known member
they are ex BBC. that's your licence fee via their pensions paying for those production values !
So the £3000 plus, Ultra anchor was chosen!
- Thread starter Zagato
- Start date
Elessar
Well-known member
as a future recipient of that same pension I'm not complaining
Neeves
Well-known member
I do like a sense of humour!
- especially on an anchor thread. makes an Ultra look decidedly cheap.Jonathan
Neeves
Well-known member
There seems to be a bit of nepotism here if you both are, or to be, recipients from the same pension fund
At least you guys know that your licence fees go to a good cause.A good video, good and prolific photography do not mean its a good review. The public are obviously very impressionable - and very easily persuaded - so top marks for possibly pandering to this
Jonathan
Kuno
New member
We have a Spade a Rocna and a Ultra on board. Our boat came with a 25kg galvanized Spade anchor. It is a great performing anchor but is a bid light for a 14 ton 46 foot sailboat. I decided to use it as the spare anchor and buy a 33kg Rocna for the main anchor. Great holding power sets really quickly great anchor in sand.
I noticed that the Rocna with its rough galvanized surface and the roll bar gets easily fouled with sea weed and sticky mud and will not reset under these conditions. Which created resetting issues and we had to clean the anchor with the boat hook quite frequently.
Last year while we where in Turkey I got a good deal on the 33kg Ultra. I'm really happy with the performance. It sets much better in weed and does not foul. Better holding in mud, it buries itself much deeper than the Rocna. I think this is because there is no roll bar and the stainless has less friction.
It comes out of the ground much cleaner I have much more confidence that it will reset properly again if somebody lifts your anchor in a busy Med anchorage. Which happened to us a few times. I think the Ultra is the best all-round anchor plus it is beautiful, but yes it is expensive.
My wife is happy that she does not have to clean the anchor when she pulls it up and she says it is more useful Bling that a gold chain around her neck.
I noticed that the Rocna with its rough galvanized surface and the roll bar gets easily fouled with sea weed and sticky mud and will not reset under these conditions. Which created resetting issues and we had to clean the anchor with the boat hook quite frequently.
Last year while we where in Turkey I got a good deal on the 33kg Ultra. I'm really happy with the performance. It sets much better in weed and does not foul. Better holding in mud, it buries itself much deeper than the Rocna. I think this is because there is no roll bar and the stainless has less friction.
It comes out of the ground much cleaner I have much more confidence that it will reset properly again if somebody lifts your anchor in a busy Med anchorage. Which happened to us a few times. I think the Ultra is the best all-round anchor plus it is beautiful, but yes it is expensive.
My wife is happy that she does not have to clean the anchor when she pulls it up and she says it is more useful Bling that a gold chain around her neck.
vyv_cox
Well-known member
They say that quality costs, so this must be a very high quality anchor indeed! But even assuming the decimal point moves two places to the left, over £1000 for a 16 kg anchor feels excessive.
Zagato
Well-known member
Agreed
£171 for a 10 kg Galv one, could be the kiddy for me. The Spade looks tempting, especially if I can put it together quickly somehow. Oh and we have not had a tv licence for 6 years, bet they are still showing the same rubbish! The news was becoming similar to a gossipy, celebrity magazine, little sport, annoying repetitive adverts and dumb day time telly! I would rather spend my licence fee on a useful
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Zagato
Well-known member
£3000 plus on a s/s anchor and £18000 on s/s chain seems a bit mad. I think I would rather have Galv, it may not last as long (not sure) but you could perhaps get a few new replacements and still be quids in. Who knows what will happen in the future, it's a big investment... getting that stuck under a rock would take the edge off your day and it,s very attractive to many with a pair of bolt cutters!! My clients like stainless steel fasteners as they think they don,t rust, they do, and they are not as strong as cheap every day fasteners. Just my feeling about s/s probably nothing relevant to chain...
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noelex
Well-known member
That is why you have two
.
Of course, the anchor does not need to be set
(to be fair the other anchor of the pair was slightly set). 
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Neeves
Well-known member
As Zagato says, or implies, there is this belief that because stainless is, stainless, then it is also strong.
If you buy 316 stainless chain then, size for size, the stainless will fail, it will yield (call it stretch) long before a G30 chain. They can have similar UTS, 316 and G30, though this might be because some of the '316' I have tested is not actually 316 (but close to). However UTS is not really relevant if it has stretched such that you cannot fit it into your gypsy. The 316 I have tested (including shackles and chain) stretched, spectacularly. I have tested shackles marked 316 and the thread of the clevis pin has deformed like toothpaste and squeezed out of the eye. If you buy Duplex, Cromox (its a brand name) stainless steel the UTS will be approximately 2 times that of 316 (so you can drop down a size). It is used in lifting as a G60 grade (food industries, pharmaceutical industries etc) and has matching components as you would expect for lifting chain. But Cromos costs. I'm no expert but you cannot tell the difference between Cromox and 316 by looking (they both look gorgeous). I'd expect Duplex stainless to be marked (especially at that price), most 316 chain I have seen is unmarked. I only know of one Duplex anchor chain maker, from Germany (Ketten and Waelder, spelling?), but maybe someone in the US. Much 316 is cheap, or cheaper than you might expect - and I suspect much you see on bow rollers is 316, not Duplex. Because G60 duplex is harder than G30 it will wear less from friction on the seabed.
Ultra are apparently using a duplex steel in the shank of the Ultra and they, obviously, weld the shank to the fluke, which I'm guessing is 316. A metallurgist might comment on whether welding these 2 metals has any issues, long term, in terms of corrosion and damage to the strength of the Duplex.
There has never been a comment I have seen on weld or corrosion issues with Ultra. There were issues of bending the shank but these disappeared once they reinforced the interior with a web of stainless and moved to duplex. I've never seen user reports on duplex chain - so few people buy it. Most people who buy an Ultra anchor report favourably.......
Jonathan
vyv_cox
Well-known member
The description duplex indicates a mixture of two phases: austenite and ferrite. Austenite is not attracted by a magnet but ferrite is. A 316 anchor or component part will not be attracted but a 318 (duplex) will. A poor quality 316 may include a small retained ferrite content but this will provide very minor magnetic attraction, whereas there is no mistaking the attraction of 318.
Hallberg-Rassy
Active member
I was interested to read the shank was hollow.
I've never heard of an anchor with added floatation before.
Elessar
Well-known member
There seems to be a bit of nepotism here if you both are, or to be, recipients from the same pension fund
A good video, good and prolific photography do not mean its a good review. The public are obviously very impressionable - and very easily persuaded - so top marks for possibly pandering to this
Jonathan
I didn’t want an anchor review. My delta is fine, it does everything I need and fits my boat perfectly so I’ve no intention of changing it.
I was happy to be entertained by their video. It was entertaining and refreshingly well made - A statement I made before I knew their previous careers.
Neeves
Well-known member
The maths and physics (what a combination) are too much for me - but there has been a suggestion the hollow and sealed shank aids its self righting characteristics (it does self right fairly flawlessly). I think one idea behind the design is to reduce weight in the shank but maintain strength - I personally think a bit of solid duplex plate would be a better option, which is what some other anchor makers resort to for the shanks of their stainless anchors (but not as gorgeous). Its an expensive construction - but I get the impression that those that buy an Ultra - money is not a significant factor.
The design and construction mean we will not see an Ultra in a galvanised version.
Jonathan
noelex
Well-known member
The construction of the hollow fabricated shank can be seen from this photo I took of another Ultra underwater:
The owner has, rather stupidly in my view, drilled a hole through the shank, but this illustrates the quite thin walls and hollow nature of the shank. The aim is to keep the shank weight as light as possible.
Reducing the shank weight significantly improves the performance of most modern anchors, enabling them to easily and rapidly rotate upright from the initial setting position and making them unstable when upside down. This is particularly important for many of the non roll bar anchors that rely on heavy ballast in the base of the fluke and a lightweight fluke to create a low centre of gravity, preventing them sitting upside down, or with toe minimally engaged. To achieve this low centre of gravity the better performing models in this category (the steel Spade and Ultra) both use the expensive construction method of a significant amount of lead ballast, instead of steel, keeping the weight low while adding as little extra bulk to the toe. This is combined with a hollow fabricated shank consisting of multiple welded sheets of metal (the Spade shank is mot sealed).
The Ultra has gone a step further and created a beautiful and strong curved shape and at the same time sealed the shank enabling the weight of the shank to be reduced in water. Owners of the Ultra indicate that the shank is completely sealed and remains watertight (if you do not drill holes in it
). I would have thought the pressure from dropping the anchor in deep water would have caused the relatively thin shank walls to buckle if this was the case, but obviously this does not happen so it must be engineered to withstand this pressure, or perhaps the shank is not completely watertight. Does anyone know for sure? Ultra did add some reinforcing bulkheads to the inside of the shank after some early shanks bent (and this has fixed the problem), but it is not clear if the sealed nature of the shank contributed to these early problems. Anyway, the Ultra shank is a wonderful piece of engineering that is not just for looks, but adds significantly to the anchor’s performance. It would be nice to see other manufacturers following this example.
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vyv_cox
Well-known member
The 2006 anchor test carried out jointly between YM, Sail magazine and West Marine included the Hydrobubble. The anchor had a plastic flotation chamber built in at the junction of the shank and fluke. This strange device Bubble anchor - Yachting Monthly actually did surprisingly well in the tests but the market was not convinced and it is no longer in production as far as I know.
Zagato
Well-known member
Compared to some other areas of sailing, anchoring has changed little over time. It,s still a hook on a length of chain. I wonder when boats will have a submersible drone dropping from the bow, on a bungee with four long thin screws on it. What about boats with bow thrusters that are linked to GPS to automatically keep you in the same position! Personally the idea of having a mast that drops down through the boat to screw into the seabed would be great for my sea sickness ?
Stemar
Well-known member
All in all, it's quite likely I'd get an Ultra and bling chain for my multi-rollover boat, but the idea of ground tackle that's worth more than my boat is a bit daft at the moment, so I'll be sticking with my Delta. I'll just make sure it's properly dug in in places like Newtown Creek, where the bottom seems to be mostly soup over a hard base.
Zagato
Well-known member
Newton Creek, now and always to be known as Cheesecake Creek!
Neeves
Well-known member
The negative of the hollow shank, or the two that are available, is that the shank turns out to be thicker, much thicker, than one made from plate. There is also no weight saving as our steel Spade shank is made from 2 plates of 6mm steel and a thin strip separating the two steel plates. Our Excel anchor shank is made from 12mm plate. But the Spade shank is thicker, because the 2 x 6mm plates are kept apart by the band of steel (to form the triangular shape). Tests show it is the ultimate thickness of the shank that reduces performance and streamlining the shanks makes no difference (to is resistance to burying). The Ultra shank is ever wider than the equivalent Spade shank.
If you wanted to make the shank better you would need to use very thin high tensile steel (and as far as I know there is only one steel maker making really thin HT steel (coincidentally used by Viking) and result in a fabricated shank thinner than the common 800 MPa steel that Rocna originally used. making a fabricated shank from say 1,600 MPa such that it is thinner than 12mm seems a tall order (and expensive).
I wonder if the shank of the Ultra is welded to a sealed fluke or if the shank slots, mortice and tenon like, into the fluke. Adding a hole, in addition to reducing the shank integrity, would allow ingress of water to the fluke within which it has had lead neatly cast....??
Jonathan
If you wanted to make the shank better you would need to use very thin high tensile steel (and as far as I know there is only one steel maker making really thin HT steel (coincidentally used by Viking) and result in a fabricated shank thinner than the common 800 MPa steel that Rocna originally used. making a fabricated shank from say 1,600 MPa such that it is thinner than 12mm seems a tall order (and expensive).
I wonder if the shank of the Ultra is welded to a sealed fluke or if the shank slots, mortice and tenon like, into the fluke. Adding a hole, in addition to reducing the shank integrity, would allow ingress of water to the fluke within which it has had lead neatly cast....??
Jonathan