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Old 07-03-2019, 11:37 PM   #1
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Modded Anchors go to Sea

five anchors went .. two got tested.

Went out to dangle some anchors downward on a Sunday.
The anchorage was one of the biggest anchorages I've ever used. Not really an anchorage but known as port Susan. The body of water between Camano Island and the mainland (Warm Beach) for those that know Puget Sound. Not a good choice. Had no significant wind but totally exposed to southerlies and little protection except from NW winds. That's what was predicted and that's what I had.

Arrived off Camano Is Country Club (bedroom community) and since I had my modded Claw on the bow it got deployed. 20' of water and 125' of rode. Didn't hook up so dragged a bit and pulled up to look. The whole inlet area is mud so I expected that. And it seemed to be indeed a mud fishing contest as things progressed. Cleaned off most of the mud and sent her back down. But this time I won the mud contest as the anchor wasn't visible .. just a huge ball of mud. Dark dark grey. Paid out about 12' of line and gave her the hydraulic drag treatment under the boat at about 3 knots. Lost about half of the mud so I gave her the long handled brush job. With a small amount of mud still clinging I brought her aboard .. probably for the last time. Even the great Steve G. had some failures but failure is not good.

Was expecting to hang on the Claw tonight but now I needed another anchor. The 12lb Supreme was easy to handle and I expected little wind so I launched the Supreme. I'm going to call her the Sub as she dosn't even look like a Supreme. Pics to follow so you be the judge. Manson may not appreciate what I'm doing and not using their anchor's name may be a good thing.
Same gig .. 20' deep and 125' of rode. That consisted of 121' of 5/8ths nylon Brait and 4' of 3/8ths chain. My usual "hand line". Yea I know .. underkill on the chain and overkill on the line.
Was almost anti-climatic as she hooked up right away and that was that. This anchor had always been a little slow or worse at getting a grip on the bottom so it was a surprise to me. Had this anchor for a long time and this was a whole new personality. I accept. And I was tired and hungry so off I went in pursuit of dinner and later peace in my chair on the afterdeck.

Peace and dinner I had. Was difficult reading my Wilber Smith book as Willy swung about so I was in sun then shade .. over and over. But I was viewing scenery 50 miles away and nearby .. also all drenched in soft pink and a bit of dark grey/purple. At one point everything seemed pink.
There were no boats about except 2-3 crabbers in the distance. Later in my sleeping bag there seemed to be endless little waves rocking me 1/2" back and forth. Got annoying after some time but as I thought about doing something about it .. it stopped.

Pulled the Sub anchor in the morning and she had a bit of that evil mud clinging to the fluke where the shank attaches. This was about 1/4 mile north of the mud gathering place last night so I was hoping for less of it or/and a nicer substance.
Put the Sub back down and set. Text book perfect. Gave her 1400rpm in reverse for about 1/2 a minute and began the retrieval. I say began as it took some time w a vertical rode sucking the Sub out of the mud. On the surface she showed a fluke about 40% chocked w mud. But it didn't seem to affect her performance. took a long time scrubbing and dragging through the water to get almost all the mud off the anchor. This was the most tenacious mud I've ever seen. I used an old kitchen fork to gouge out the last bit of mud. Well, dredging up mud should be no surprise .. after all she's a decendant of the Supreme. Gonna have to work on that.

The other anchors were heavier except the Northill that I told a TF member here I would try out. But it is big and bulky. Would be hard leaning out over the cap rail w/o falling over. Or not banging the anchor against the hull. Being solo this time I decided to do other anchors later.

first pic is of the modded Supreme w the holes I drilled out a few months ago. I modded this anchor so-as to streamline the shape to offer the least amount of resistance to moving through the seabed in hopes that the resulting anchor would penetrate deep into the seabed to maximize the resistance to being pulled out.

Second pic is as the anchor has been for awhile w lots of small holes to reduce the mud sticking.

Third pic shows the holes from the bottom of the fluke. I countersunk the holes from this side to maximize the water flow from underneath and minimize the size of the holes.

The fourth pic shows the bigger holes I just drilled. Have some countersinking yet to do.
Attached Thumbnails
DSCF2508.jpg   DSCF2568 copy 2.jpg   DSCF2569 copy.jpg   DSCF2744 copy.jpg  
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Old 07-04-2019, 01:09 AM   #2
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Quote:
I'm going to call her the Sub as she dosn't even look like a Supreme.
Or maybe call her "Diana" because she's really close to the Supremes, but not really one of them.

I love your anchor posts and experiments. I love it when people go test ideas and products and not just sit around and argue about them. We all do a bit of both but you have to love new data.

Port Susan mud is another realm; I have family who live on the Camano side. It's really quite precious and commercial fisheries own the rights to huge pieces of it; it's massively good shell fish grounds partly for that reason. We can send the kids down the cliff with a bucket and then feed two or three families with what they harvest in a 1/2 hour without much effort.

Looking forward to your completed results and formal annotated paper.
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Old 07-04-2019, 07:23 PM   #3
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HaHa Dianna would be good but it really dosn’t sound like anything except a girl.

Re Camano we had/have three lots and an old cabin at Mt View Beach. I first went there when I was 9 or so. The bottom drops of fast not far out. Couldn’t get closer than 1/4 mile at low tide w my boat this trip.

Glad someone else likes the experimenting. This anchor thing started out as a quest to get a good anchor system that worked well w a few feet of chain and a 15lb anchor. Started close to 10 years ago but my activity was spotty. Have always been able to anchor my boat w/o dragging. But if I had it to do it over again I’d opt for a 20lb SARCA anchor, 50’ of chain and a combination windlass. But it took a lot of years with experience to arrive at that. And it’s not really over.

Re the Supreme I was very close to believing the Supreme couldn’t do W/O the roll bar. I’m glad I kept on down the sans roll bar route as I definitely wouldn’t have achieved what I think I have. I really should have more successes to start crow’in but I do think it’s repeatable. Steve G felt that way once and it totally flopped. I may too.

We’re going to take a trip up Vancouver Is in a car. Don’t know if I’ll add to the great experiment or not before we leave. Summers always go so fast.


I forgot to display a pic of the modded Claw.
This is it before I cut 1 1/4" off the center fluke.
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