Slide anchor? Anyone seen these?

I sub to Iboats and today, I got an ad for a slide anchor. When I saw it, I thought cool an anchor for water toys like a floating slide or those blow-up toys that are anchored dockside. Upon further inspection, they are meant for boats and pretty large boats at that. Anyone have experience with these? Curiosity is getting the better of me with these things.



Slide Anchor Box Anchors - Select Size

My dad bought one many years ago, he would brag that it never dragged. He also never deployed it. Ugly thing.

Looks more like a contraption than an anchor.

A lot of anchors act like bulldozers and I think this one does. Navy anchors are like that and dragging probably is’nt usually a safety concern because they probably rarely drag very far. But I would guess this one has more holding power than most would suspect.
Not very high holding power to weight though. Danforth is similar but much lighter.

Products like this exist probably because many people thing new things are better just because they are new. After all why come out w a new product if it wasn’t better? Not say’in one shouldn’t buy this but it probably has little or no reputation and is clearly heavier than it needs to be.
But Fish I’ll not argue the ugly comment.

I've never tried one but have heard good things about them from the watersports crowd, they fold flat for easy stowage and are generally used for lunch and swimming breaks in non-tidal areas and probably not for overnight or unattended use.

Whether it drags or not, if you have a large one, where do you store it on deck?

Anchors are like fishing lures.

They are designed to attract human eyes.

And some work way better than others.....just Iike lures....

Far too many moveable pieces.
My preference is for one piece construction other than the shackle holding it to the chain.

Ted

That thing would look pretty stupid hanging off a pulpit.

Box and slide anchor
Under $200 for the large model.

In a Mantus promotional test, box anchor pulls out, flips over, wont hold.

On of my anchors is a little 7lb SeaChoice danforth style, and it holds real good. It is very light. I have 6 feet of 3/8 chain and I use it as a picnic anchor off the stern of the boat.

I’ve seen those misleading Mantus vids before. They must put in countless hours arranging all the variables that make other anchors look silly.
Never seen Manson, Anchor Right Australia, Rocna or any other manufacturer off the top of my head doing this sort of stuff. Give me a beach and a little 1”4” line and I could make the Mantus look just as stupid.

Re the box anchor flipping up it’s rear end ....
That’s on the beach w/o water. In the water the rear end probably stays down. I don’t see the Box anchor as a commercial threat to the likes of Mantus so why are they even wasting time doing this?

Eric, say it isn’t so. Many people have been duped.

Yup ....

And see how hard the sand is in post 11?
He pulls smoothly on his Mantus but jerks on the line to the other anchors.
He could be setting up the Mantus on a “messed with” spot of sand and on an especially hard spot for the other anchors.
Lots of tricks can be performed on the beach.

Not say’in the Mantus is a bad anchor. Not perfect on two counts that I can think of but a fairly good or a bit better anchor in most respects. Rocna hasn’t been fully honest presenting their anchor either but it’s a full knotch better than the Mantus. And the Supreme isn’t as good as I once thought it was either. The Rocna and Supreme are about equal IMO now but everything is fluid in anchoring. Fluid haha

I have seen some yachts with smoothed and high polished stainless anchors. They must be marina queens by the mirror finish on their anchors. Every weld was meticulously smoothed and blended to make the anchor look to be one piece before polishing.

Carp, I got off topic in my own thread.


These are interesting anchors. Not pretty by no means. Not something I would swing from the bow. Wouldn't be bad for a backup anchor incase the main is lost. I wonder how they would work as a second anchor or stern anchor. My small boat could use an easy to stow anchor.

Ben I had one of those on a previous boat, the anchor was an Ultra, really highly polished stainless . Beautiful and mud slid right off it, I probably anchored a few hundred times with that anchor and it always looked beautiful, I would have taken it but it was too small for the new boat. No marina queen for sure.

ben2go said:

I have seen some yachts with smoothed and high polished stainless anchors. They must be marina queens by the mirror finish on their anchors. Every weld was meticulously smoothed and blended to make the anchor look to be one piece before polishing.

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I know several polished SS anchor owners that have never dropped the anchor. They go dock to dock or raft alongside another boat.

Their reason - they don't want to scuff up the anchor!

The market these sell well for is ski boats and pontoons, neither have pulpits and I think they are stored in whatever storage area is available, under seat or in storage next to the v-drive engine. I believe they are typically used without and chain rode and at steep ratios. I recall hearing people rave about them on wakeboarding forums.

Bigsfish said:

Ben I had one of those on a previous boat, the anchor was an Ultra, really highly polished stainless . Beautiful and mud slid right off it, I probably anchored a few hundred times with that anchor and it always looked beautiful, I would have taken it but it was too small for the new boat. No marina queen for sure.

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You have a point there. Add an anchor sprayer under the pulpit and have a seamless ground tackle retrieval cleaning system.

syjos said:

I know several polished SS anchor owners that have never dropped the anchor. They go dock to dock or raft alongside another boat.

Their reason - they don't want to scuff up the anchor!

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I could imagine that. I like to explore. I'll probably pick up a few used anchors just because I don't want to drop a pretty new anchor in the muck. :lol:

Gdavid said:

The market these sell well for is ski boats and pontoons, neither have pulpits and I think they are stored in whatever storage area is available, under seat or in storage next to the v-drive engine. I believe they are typically used without and chain rode and at steep ratios. I recall hearing people rave about them on wakeboarding forums.

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We have a big wakeboard culture here. I've never seen anything other than mushrooms or Danforth flutes.

I have used one as a stern anchor on smaller boats. It worked okay the few times I needed it but never put it to a good test. There are so many known excellent anchors out there that I would not purchase one of these.

My used boat came with a SS plow anchor. I would never buy a SS anchor simply for the cost added cost. But once on board it holds just a well as galvanized ones. I anchor a lot and find the plow does a job on most bottoms but not as well as the old Northhill ones that you can only buy copies of now. NH works better on rock that anything else I have used. This box one is ugly, hard to stow on most boats. I agree why search for a fix where it is not required?

I had and used one for 15 years when I ran trailerable boats, from 15' to 23' and it served me well.

It was very tolerant to tight scopes, and didn't require much finesse to get set.

Storage was easy as it came with a heavy vinyl coated canvas bag and easily folded into the bag...remember 99.99% fresh water used.

I mostly fresh water boated until moving to the PNW, and it served well on sandy and muddy bottoms in lakes and rivers.

When up here in the PNW I did (foolishly) throw it out at slack in the Tacoma narrows near salmon beach one time. By the time I figured I needed to do something the ebb had come and I was making a wake off the boat with the anchor SET into the bottom. Likely it had snagged a rock. Had to re-tie the rode to the aft cleat and make a couple runs at it to get it to break free. No damage or bent flukes.

Another time on Lake Cushman I had anchored in a cove and had it snag on a downed log in about 25' of too-cold-to-dive water. I pinballed off the rode for about 1/2 hour trying to get it off the log, and finally was successful. Again, no bent flukes and it folded up easily as it always had upon stowing.

It is an ugly thing no doubt, but it worked well for me.

I wouldn't hesitate to get another if I were to ever get another ski boat or a large tender and had room for it.

Northill

Slider70,
Have you ever used a Northill like this?
Haven’t tried mine yet but I’m fearing I’ll never get the mud off of it.

Nomad Willy,
That Northhill pattern looks like one of the folding sea plane anchors from WWII. They are quite good anchors--not ideal for mud--but do wash clean as any other anchor does. I have owned a couple of them thru the years--sized for the PBY on down.

It won't dig in! Designed to fail.

Hey Rich you throw’in water on the old Northill?

“Loooks” to be the last thing one would say about them.
I don’t have washdown so I may need to drag it under the boat.
I was in a flying boat squadron in the Navy w Grumman Albatross, P2V bombers converted to asw and P5M Martin flying boats. Biggest flying boat in the world at that time (60’s) but I don’t remember seeing them anchor. Large landing gear/beaching gear was attached in the water and then the big P5M was pulled up a wide ramp w a tractor.

Willy, a Northill looks very good alongside this thang.

P2Vs and Martin Mariners? Man, are you old! They were both gone a bit before I joined up in 1965.

Nomad Willy said:

Slider70,
Have you ever used a Northill like this?
Haven’t tried mine yet but I’m fearing I’ll never get the mud off of it.

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A discard from a church steeple, slightly modified? It might keep a boat safer.