Alaskan Sea-Duction
Guru
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2012
- Messages
- 8,062
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Alaskan Sea-Duction
- Vessel Make
- 1988 M/Y Camargue YachtFisher
"Typical soft mud bottom" ...
Who knows this bottom? Is it typical or extremely challenging?
So in the PNW and the inside passage what is a typical bottom?
So in the PNW and the inside passage what is a typical bottom?
Pulp logs, wire rope, and dozer tracks as far as I can tell.
At this very moment I am anchored at Solomon's Island, in Mill Creek off the Patuxent River with the "typical soft mud bottom." Right here in the immediate vicinity of the big anchor show down!
I would like to think that a quick glance at charts and any soils/geologic explanation of the Chesapeake basin shows that bottom composition can vary from one side of a creek to another..just ask any waterman who oysters or crabs....
....and they don't need the science...just experience.
There are several skippers in the Puget Sound area that use the Super Max anchor and think it's great. The super Max has three protrusions that are very much like the fluke end on my XYZ and it may be even less likely to penetrate a rocky bottom. But people use the Super Max and I would think that would say even more so than my using my XYZ that most all bottoms in the area are mud .. or at least soft.
And yes, Chris, the University of Maryland and the crew of the Rachel Carson led us to the site. Thanks!
from the Chesapeake Holding thread...post 3
http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s42/chesapeake-anchor-holding-power-test-15941.html
The location is at approximately Lat: 38°18'58.49"N and Long: 76°26'48.94"W
Thanks,
Brian
Ah. Glad it wasn't a snake... Dunno how I missed it...
Looks like the chart says approx. 40' depth, nearest bottom marking (a "tad" slightly WSW from there) simply says soft.
-Chris
Brian,
Read the reports. The first two were basically a waste of time but the third was excellent. The inclusion of Rocna's whining about their competitor not making them the star of the show could have been dropped but I can understand why the author wanted to explain in some way the Rocna's terrible performance.
That said the rest of the article was well written and quite to very objective. His grouping together anchors w similar design and more importantly .. performance gave good comprehensive scope to the issue. He even posted good pictures of the anchors .. not always easy to find.
And he gave proper credit to the Ultra and Mantus for their excellent consistency in the test.
Something that occurred to me is that the quite heavy chain could have, and IMO probably did sink below the bottom enough to affect the attitude of the shank to interrupt the normal setting. A roll bar anchor upside down w it's shank held below the surface of the bottom may very well indeed cause the anchor not to set. One can only guess why this did not happen to the Mantus. The Mantus roll bar is quite a bit different that all the rest and it looks to me as it could be more likely to drag upside down .. but it didn't ..? I have a theory though.
So in a very good test the 1938 designed Danforth anchor did outperform lots of much later designs, one of them the most popular of the day to show that older anchors have plenty of merit and the anchor you have on your boat may not need replacing. Especially if it's a Danforth.