Fine Art of Anchoring

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Thanks for posting that ACD,

If this is actually correct ....
"The anchors were tested on a typical soft mud bottom, the kind in which many boaters routinely anchor. The location at the mouth of the Patuxent River near Solomons Island, Maryland in the southern part of the Chesapeake Bay was chosen because of the relatively consistent mud bottom —" ....

"Typical soft mud bottom" then I think I need to look at the results of this test in a way different light than I believe I've been led to believe. I thought this was an extremely difficult bottom .... not typical at all. If that is so then marveling at any reasonable performance would be the order of the day. But if this is actually a typical mud anchorage these poor and miserable performances of state of the art anchors (with the obvious exceptions) should cause one to look at older traditional anchors much more seriously. I think most older anchors would be at least more consistent.

Who knows this bottom? Is it typical or extremely challenging?
 
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There is no "typical" soft bottom....

Look on a nautical chart of the Chesapeake and in many popular anchorages, the bottom consistency changes as you move around the anchorage.

If you hit a particular gooey spot...which may have been on the chart already if you bothered to study the chart...move towards one of the bottom types that better suits your anchor...or move on to one of the zillion anchorages in the Chesapeake that doesn't have such poor holding for your anchor.
 
Finding a "typical soft bottom" is like finding a typical family with 1 1/2 children.
 
manyboats said:
"Typical soft mud bottom" ...

Who knows this bottom? Is it typical or extremely challenging?
Click to expand...


I don't know that exact area, but it sounds like what I've encountered pretty everywhere in the upper Chesapeake. As I said in the other thread: mud around here ranges from mud, to medium mud, soft mud, gooey mud, slimy mud... mud covered with leaves... etc.

I don't know as I'd call it challenging, but there've been times when we dragged (see other thread). And now mostly we don't drag (see other thread). Probably as Marin says: until we do (other thread).

-Chris
 
Here we go again, and I can't resist:

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!

We are headed south but it has been blowing 15 to 25 kts with gusts over 30 since Tuesday. So, we lowered our 60# Manson Supreme and set it with 80' of chain. Gently backed down on it and settled in for my evening nourishment and to wait out the blow. It's now Friday and we are still here and think we can leave tomorrow. We haven't moved not an inch, best I can tell.

There are a few more boats anchored here as well---five 45-50 foot sailboats, a 36' trawler and one BIG sailing cat. Plus, a disheveled looking trimaran. It's comforting that none of my anchor mates have moved at all.

Guess we are all using the "best" anchor. :D

Howard
 
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.
 
So in the PNW and the inside passage what is a typical bottom?
 
Alaskan Sea-Duction said:
So in the PNW and the inside passage what is a typical bottom?
Click to expand...

In our experience, there isn't one. We've encountered relatively soft, clean sand; coarse clean sand; fairly heavy mud; very soft mushy mud; mud in between those two extremes; gravel; a mix of rocks and gravel; and bottoms with heavy growth ("weeds").

Then layered on top of those bottoms in a lot of places is Northern Spy's description, which is why we often use a trip line on our anchor.:)

The wide variety of bottom conditions from Puget Sound on up through SE Alaska is one reason for the popularity of the Bruce anchor up here. This anchor has a reputation (deserved or not is another question) for reliable setting in a wide variety of bottoms. (Note that I said "setting," not "holding.")

As opposed to something like a Danforth-type anchor which is great in mud and sand but can have problems trying to set in other types of bottoms.
 
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First of all there is no " The fine Art of Anchoring"...

Just like medicine it should the " The Practice of Anchoring "

I am still practicing at 35 years and counting

HOLLYWOOD
 
Alaskan Sea-Duction wrote;
"So in the PNW and the inside passage what is a typical bottom?"

I never expected this modified XYZ anchor to set in anything but mud or other soft bottoms w it's very wide fluke tip. I gave it a rather blunt chisel tip w my grinder. But it set 10 times (or so) on our trip south from Ketchikan. Performed flawlessly so whatever you want to call the bottoms I hooked into I think it's safe to say they were "soft". It looks like the bottoms up north to Ketchikan are very soft ... or mud. However the anchor came up basically lean every time.

I plan to make a new tip out of 5/16" plate instead of 1/4" plate and making it a little pointed. The tip is about 4" wide now and the new one will be about 2 3/4" to 3" wide. Straight sides as before but turned in a bit. I want to retain much of the tip width to save most of the added tip surface area fwd. That should enhance short scope holding and all the better if there is no downside.
 

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hmason said:
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!
Click to expand...


Didn't Brian post the coordinates where the recent Fortress tests were? I gathered the testing was done outside, not in the protected creeks...


psneeld said:
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.
Click to expand...


Yep. Been there, done that. A couple of our local creeks are notorious for difficulty in setting (leaves covering the bottom) or holding (soupy mud). OTOH, a "next creek over" is just fine.

Given The Fortress test coordinates, it wouldn't be difficult to see how the chart describes that particular test bottom. And I think somewhere in the, Brian said the site was chosen based on input from U of M research and the boat crew (aka experience).

-Chris
 
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.
 
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The song that never ends.
:hide::whistling::whistling::whistling:
​
 
There are certain types of mud much like snow that do not "bind" well. This mud can have tendency to avalanche, except in this case it happens horizontally. Any decent bottom machine can point this type of mud out to you. If you absolutely have to anchor in this type of bottom structure then you are foolish to rely on ANY one anchor, in my opinion. For the record we did spend several nights at anchor in the region where these tests were done but we kept our fortress anchor on deck and used our rocna instead.


Via iPhone.
 
Bottom machine ?

Brain,
Thanks. Got something to read on a very rainy day.
 
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.
 
We used our Rocna anchor in the Chesapeake early this summer but never quite found the goo like you do down here on the TenTom waterway, where this morning I had so much mud stick to the rode and anchor that it took a considerable amount of time to half clean them off.

By the end of the day the residual mud had stained my foredeck pretty bad that it will take a lot of elbow grease to bring it back, I would have done more cleaning when fresh as I pulled away from the anchorage but being solo in skinny water has other more important challenges.
 
manyboats said:
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.
Click to expand...


Yeah, I'd describe the SuperMax as looking similar to the business end of a backhoe. Wouldn't call it attractive :)

I think the weighting is what mostly causes it to land properly, but I think the outside points of the "bucket" can also influence the thing to tip itself into the correct orientation. Just theorizing, though. OTOH, I've never had it obviously land upside down... or if it did, it must have righted itself so quickly I couldn't tell otherwise.

Ours has worked well for us here on the Chesapeake -- mostly mud or various consistencies, sometimes mud covered with leaves, sometimes oyster shells -- but I don't have any experience with it in other holding grounds.

-Chris
 
Fortress Anchors said:

And yes, Chris, the University of Maryland and the crew of the Rachel Carson led us to the site. Thanks!
Click to expand...


Thought I remembered that correctly. Didn't you once post the coordinates? Not sure, but thought I'd seen those somewhere...

-Chris
 
So right in the outer entrance channel to Solomons. For obvious reasons, have never anchored there. But right where the chart is marked "soft". Between two "hard" areas in the path of the outflow from the creek, like so many spots on the Chessie where one does anchor, though some are labeled "silt" or "shells" among other things and mixtures such as mud/shells. It's fun and often instructive, when in doubt, to take a big pointed pyramid sinker, coat it with silicon grease and throw it overboard to see what you've got down below.
 
ranger42c said:
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
Click to expand...

I know how...returning to that thread was traumatic enough...the first time around put me in a forum induced coma for days....:D
 
manyboats said:
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.
Click to expand...

Eric, there are a few more stories that will follow, and I expect that the one from the Sail magazine writer will be particularly hard-hitting, so to speak, as he is a long-time cruiser and he is writing a book on anchoring. He was aboard for all 4 days of the testing, from start to finish, and we talked anchors from dinner Monday night through breakfast Saturday morning.

For the testing we used 20-ft of 3/8" G4 chain, which as I recall weighed about 30 lbs. I believe it had an effect on the "pivoting fluke" anchors (Danforth and Fortress) as at the long starting scope, it might have sunk the shank below the flukes and preventing setting in a couple of instances in the soft mud.

I would welcome hearing your theory as to why the Mantus roll bar anchor (and the Manson Supreme as well) consistently set better than the Rocna, I haven't a clue........:confused:

And yes, a 1938 anchor design did, in fact, achieve the highest tension over the course of 60+ tests, and an American one at that. :thumb:
 
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