ranger58sb
Guru
Not always Chris,
Buried won't have much holding power in a very soft bottom.
Chris wrote;
"Is that all theoretical critique, or have you actually experienced that with ballasted anchors?"
Never used a ballasted anchor so it's "theoretical critique". My "theory" is that if you can get a non-ballasted anchor to set why use extra weight. Seems just "extra" to me. Why not get a bigger fluke anchor instead?
We've not had problems -- with Fortress or MAX anchors -- in soupy bottoms. Fully buried seems (intuitively, to me) better than only partially buried. Said differently, and assuming the angle of the dangle is all in accordance with the maker's instructions... when would a fully buried anchor not be better than a partially buried or only slightly buried anchor?
I like bigger fluke area, too, but if I have to get a heavier -- ballasted or not -- anchor to do that, not sure it would matter to me. Within the limits of what I can lift manually if my windlass craps out... additional anchor weight doesn't concern me much.
OT analogy, but I'm reminded of magazines articles in the '70s: .45 or 9mm, which is better? Slow and heavy, or light and fast? Always seemed to me the best answer was heavy and fast. (Within the limits of controllable recoil., of course.)
There are others too but no anchor is good in really soft mud except Fortress or Danforths.
Our SuperMAX does very well in soft mud. So far, every bit as well as our Fortress. I've never even had to adjust the MAX to its mud setting, yet.
We use it as our primary now, instead of the Fortress, but mostly because the Fortress doesn't hang so well on our pulpit/roller, the Fortress can be carried out as a kedge (much!) more easily if necessary, and the Fortress can be dismantled for better stowage.
If you haven't seen them, google anchoring reports from Cap'n Wil Andrews, starting from the mid-90s sometime I think. He did lots of hurricane-focused anchor testing in soup, and eventually included the MAX anchors in his testing regime.
We were just down in Solomons this last weekend, so I'm reminded I tried to convince Brian to include a MAX in the Chesapeake Bay testing, even offered to let them use our anchor... but that didn't work out for various legit reasons, not least of which was that I didn't know about the testing/didn't make the offer until after they'd already mapped out their plan and so forth. Rats! Would have liked to see the comparison...
-Chris