Vulcan anchor and seagrass. Rubbish?

dgadee

dgadee

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Just spent an afternoon trying to get my Vulcan anchor set in seagrass areas. Just won't. No matter what I try it brings up a big lump of the stuff and just doesn't hold. Other boatsaround me seem fine. Vulcan works well in sand (I just found some!) but is it a particularly poor choice or are all NG anchors the same? Or what?
 
I wouldn’t have thought anything but a fishermans would be any use - I guess the boats around you had found patches of sand.
Perhaps the new marketing slogan for the Vulcan(I have one also) should be - “The environmentally sound choice”!
 
eddystone said:
I wouldn’t have thought anything but a fishermans would be any use - I guess the boats around you had found patches of sand.
Perhaps the new marketing slogan for the Vulcan(I have one also) should be - “The environmentally sound choice”!
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We use our Spade in seagrass all the time. No issue. What is your procedure for anchoring?
 
geem said:
How do you let it out? How much scope before you pull? Assuming you use a windlass, do you free drop it or power it down?
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Let out on windlass. Usually 3 to 4, then a bit more before full reverse.

I have a Kobra onboard. May give that a go.

How much seagrass is there in Greece? Just on north end of Corfu.
 
dgadee said:
Let out on windlass. Usually 3 to 4, then a bit more before full reverse.

I have a Kobra onboard. May give that a go.

How much seagrass is there in Greece? Just on north end of Corfu.
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We like to free drop the anchor if we can. With a little clutch friction the chain will free wheel out, pulled out by the weight of the anchor. Its easy to sense when the anchor has hit bottom as the chain slows down. Once the anchor hits the bottom you can release the clutch friction so the chain pulls out more easily. The windage o f the boat should pull the chain out and lay it in a nice straight line if you anchor head to wind and stop as you release the anchor. We lay out 3 or 4:1 as you do then we fix our snubber and pull the anchor in with the engine in reverse. This would be at tick over initially until the chain start to come tight then gradually we increase revs over a minute or so. We stop at about 80% of full revs. Some people dont do this with their snubber attached but we have never found this a problem. We dont like pulling against the windlass. If the seabed is rocky then the anchor can release its hold and grab again very quickly setting up some very high loads on the chain whilst you are in reverse. This load on the chain transfers to the windlass. We have a heavy boat with a large powerful engine and large prop. We can apply some serious pull.
 
I pull with chain on cleat, never against windlass. I think it is the anchor rather than any particular technique.
 
dgadee said:
Let out on windlass. Usually 3 to 4, then a bit more before full reverse.

I have a Kobra onboard. May give that a go.

How much seagrass is there in Greece? Just on north end of Corfu.
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You find sea grass every where in the Med but to be honest I never had any real problems finding any where I couldn't anchor in Greece , it more other boats that's the problem then sea grass .
How you drop the chain doesn't matter , ( free drop or power ) and by what you wrote it seen you have the A General idea how to anchor , just make sure you don't pile your chain on the anchor if you free drop ,
If the bottom isn't suitable move to another spot .
Don't assume because there others anchored around you it must be some thing wrong that your doing , they too may not have their anchor set .
The biggest mistake people make and why they drag is , if there can get their anchor to set after a couple of goes they started getting embarrassed as people watch on and in stead of keep going until the manage to set the anchor they just leave it .
Wind picks up and off they go .
The Valcan is a good anchor , it will set , only comment I would made is as soon as you see the chain just starting to get tight easy off on the rev , give it a second or two and then slowly put the rev on until the chain start again to get tight and this time just very slowly keep increasing the rev until you reach set rev and if at any time the chain start to slacking off stop other wise all you will do is pull the anchor alone the sea bed and it won't have a chance to set .
Never never think it be ok I read on ybw people say it will set it self when the wind pick up , basically they talking crap .
Set your anchor and you sleep much better .

Last comment I see you say you let out 3/4 scope , forget the 3 , you find 4/5 much better scope especially in shallow depth ,
Unless room is tight we drop 5 times in normal conditions , remember you can always take a bit back up once set if you find there not the room .
 
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eddystone said:
I wouldn’t have thought anything but a fishermans would be any use - I guess the boats around you had found patches of sand.
Perhaps the new marketing slogan for the Vulcan(I have one also) should be - “The environmentally sound choice”!
Click to expand...
You can get a anchor to cut through sea grass as long it isn't too thick , we some time don't have a option but to anchor on sea grass and it's not the first time we anchored in the dark to see in the morning there sea grass all around , this is why it's so important to pile on the rev slowly off course to make sure you cut through the grass and not just hanging on to it .
 
sailaboutvic said:
You find sea grass every where in the Med but to be honest I never had any real problems finding any where I couldn't anchor in Greece , it more other boats that's the problem then sea grass .
How you drop the chain doesn't matter , ( free drop or power ) and by what you wrote it seen you have the A General idea how to anchor , just make sure you don't pile your chain on the anchor if you free drop ,
If the bottom isn't suitable move to another spot .
Don't assume because there others anchored around you it must be some thing wrong that your doing , they too may not have their anchor set .
The biggest mistake people make and why they drag is , if there can get their anchor to set after a couple of goes they started getting embarrassed as people watch on and in stead of keep going until the manage to set the anchor they just leave it .
Wind picks up and off they go .
The Valcan is a good anchor , it will set , only comment I would made is as soon as you see the chain just starting to get tight easy off on the rev , give it a second or two and then slowly put the rev on until the chain start again to get tight and this time just very slowly keep increasing the rev until you reach set rev and if at any time the chain start to slacking off stop other wise all you will do is pull the anchor alone the sea bed and it won't have a chance to set .
Never never think it be ok I read on ybw people say it will set it self when the wind pick up , basically they talking crap .
Set your anchor and you sleep much better .

Last comment I see you say you let out 3/4 scope , forget the 3 , you find 4/5 much better scope especially in shallow depth ,
Unless room is tight we drop 5 times in normal conditions , remember you can always take a bit back up once set if you find there not the room .
Click to expand...
I think we are saying the same thing. The reason for suggesting free dropping with a little clutch tension was so you dont create a pile of chain on top of the anchor. I agree in shallow water its better with more than 3:1. We tend to work on a minimum of 20m of chain plus our snubber either 9m or 12m from the deck cleat. In deep water we find 3:1 ok but we have a Spade?
 
I am not stingy with chain - exactly the opposite. Had problems with seagrass all over the Med. I have no confidence in the Vulcan in it any more. Sand shows it as a great anchor. Seagrass as useless.
 
geem said:
I think we are saying the same thing. The reason for suggesting free dropping with a little clutch tension was so you dont create a pile of chain on top of the anchor. I agree in shallow water its better with more than 3:1. We tend to work on a minimum of 20m of chain plus our snubber either 9m or 12m from the deck cleat. In deep water we find 3:1 ok but we have a Spade?
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We are saying the same ,
I think dgadee may just need to practise a bit more to get more confident, it sound as if he doing it mostly right .
Grass isnt the best place or the easy place to anchor
 
sailaboutvic said:
We are saying the same ,
I think dgadee may just need to practise a bit more to get more confident, it sound as if he doing it mostly right .
Grass isnt the best place or the easy place to anchor
Click to expand...

Maybe. But I think I will buy spade.
 
dgadee said:
Maybe. But I think I will buy spade.
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if you feel happyer with a spade then go for it ,
but remember even the best anchor out there isn't going to do the job if it's not set right .
When I sold my last boat I kept my 15kg Rocna but because of the places we some time anchor , places where others wouldn't dream to anchor I felt with a much bigger and heavier boat I rather the next size up , ended up selling it to a couple in Lefkas who told me their anchor dragged most time and was a pain to set ,
only when I dropped the anchor off I sew their other anchor was a Bugle , bloody hell I tho if I hadn't already brought my new Rocna I would had happily taken it off them .
I bet hey tho the same with the Rocna unless they l got the hang of using it .
This is not to say you don't know how to set the anchor , only to say maybe work with it a bit longer before spending more money ,
anchors don't set them self as some want us to believe , they need a little help for us .
 
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