Mantus vs Rocna

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

It's not relevant to the OP's search for anchor recommendations, but I think Dockhead is rewriting history about the start of new generation.

Of course, all young people think they're the new generation, nicht wahr?

As part of my research, I looked at when term 'new generation anchor' was first used.

Answer is in 1978.

And the 'new generation anchors' were? The Vyrhof Stevin (introduced in 1972), the Bruce, and the Flipper Delta.

Since 1978, various people have had a go at identifying criteria behind a 'new generation anchor'. Answer is usually something like:

(1) self-position for penetrating, relying on a roll bar, self-righting shank, or geometry of centre of buoyancy;
(2) remain embedded when the anchor rode veers the direction of pull;
(3) are roll stable, remaining embedded in soil and transitioning from static holding to dynamic holding instead of rolling onto soil surface; and
(4) hold in a wide variety of substrates.

First time term 'roll stable anchor' was used seems to be in 1975, and first anchor identified as 'absolutely roll stable' was the Bruce (14,000 - 20,000 pound range).

Al

I don't think you're actually contradicting me. Small boat anchors have been through a few waves of development. CQR in its time was a revolution and meant to be the "end of history" for small boat anchors. Naturally anything "new" in 1978 is already "old" by 2014. So 1978's "new generation" is not the same as 2014's "new generation" - time marches on, and it is not "rewriting history" to recognize this.

[AlexCollier]

Wow - thanks to all for the wealth of opinions and information.

Thanks to sparrow1 for the recommendation re the utube videos -they were most informative.
Both the Mantus (and Rochna) websites have excellent infomercials.

From a couple of comments in this thread and tests such as the West Marine test the Mantus has the edge for setting.
However I have found no objective explanation as to why - only disclaimers that conditions have a huge impact on the performance of all anchors.
(The engineer in me is hesitant to accept stuff on face value...)

I will be sailing on the East Coast in Buzzards Bay and Long Island sound this season so a wide range of bottoms and plenty of grass - so the Mantus looks like a good fit.

Thanks to all

Alex

[Dennis.G]

Used a Mantus for last 8 months, about 80% of days anchored out. Never an issue with dragging or failure to reset. Am happy. Never really had an extreme event to put it to the test however.

The size recommendations by Mantus are already conservative and likely a size larger than usual recommendations by others, so I see no need to upsize (as already recommended by others). I have an 85 lb anchor (recommended working anchor size per Mantus) on my 48 foot ketch and it seems oversized if anything, and easily storm capable to me. Going up a size from that just seems extreme and I would not do it.

[Mantus Anchors]

Originally Posted by AlexCollier

Wow - thanks to all for the wealth of opinions and information.

Thanks to sparrow1 for the recommendation re the utube videos -they were most informative.
Both the Mantus (and Rochna) websites have excellent infomercials.

From a couple of comments in this thread and tests such as the West Marine test the Mantus has the edge for setting.
However I have found no objective explanation as to why - only disclaimers that conditions have a huge impact on the performance of all anchors.
(The engineer in me is hesitant to accept stuff on face value...)

I will be sailing on the East Coast in Buzzards Bay and Long Island sound this season so a wide range of bottoms and plenty of grass - so the Mantus looks like a good fit.

Thanks to all

Alex

Alex as members of this forum suggested, Spade, Ultra, Rocna, Manson Supreme and Mantus are all excellent... and showing a difference between them is pretty hard. What we tweaked is : we widened the back of the anchor as to put more weight on the nose.... with the result of having really weighted nose without the need for the lead ballast (volume that is hard to shove into a hard bottom)
We optimized the balance of the anchor a little more... so you get better performance at penetrating hard/grassy bottoms... But the circumstances where you will see the difference are pretty rare... So all 5 are good choices...
Greg

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Mantus Anchors

Alex as members of this forum suggested, Spade, Ultra, Rocna, Manson Supreme and Mantus are all excellent... and showing a difference between them is pretty hard. What we tweaked is : we widened the back of the anchor as to put more weight on the nose.... with the result of having really weighted nose without the need for the lead ballast (volume that is hard to shove into a hard bottom)
We optimized the balance of the anchor a little more... so you get better performance at penetrating hard/grassy bottoms... But the circumstances where you will see the difference are pretty rare... So all 5 are good choices...
Greg

Greg, that is about the most honest and unbiased statement by a vendor that I have ever read. Kudos to you for your openness and fair appraisal.

We're happy enough with our Manson Supreme, but should I need to replace it, I would certainly entertain the idea of a Mantus. I still harbour enough distaste for the earlier practices of Rocna that I would not be looking at their products. What a difference in customer relations!

Cheers,

Jim.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Mantus Anchors

Alex as members of this forum suggested, Spade, Ultra, Rocna, Manson Supreme and Mantus are all excellent... and showing a difference between them is pretty hard. What we tweaked is : we widened the back of the anchor as to put more weight on the nose.... with the result of having really weighted nose without the need for the lead ballast (volume that is hard to shove into a hard bottom)
We optimized the balance of the anchor a little more... so you get better performance at penetrating hard/grassy bottoms... But the circumstances where you will see the difference are pretty rare... So all 5 are good choices...
Greg

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Mantus Anchors

.. . . What we tweaked is : we widened the back of the anchor as to put more weight on the nose.... with the result of having really weighted nose without the need for the lead ballast (volume that is hard to shove into a hard bottom)
We optimized the balance of the anchor a little more... so you get better performance at penetrating hard/grassy bottoms...

That sounds good!

It's the balance which was exactly what I didn't like about my previous Rocna. It would fail to set in various circumstances, and was hard to handle, because it liked to come out of the water upside-down upon retrieval. If you've mitigated these problems, then you've advanced the state of the art.

I don't, however, understand this phrase: "volume that is hard to shove into a hard bottom", referring to lead. Lead is about half again as dense as steel, so a kilogram of lead is, on the contrary, going to be much easier to shove into a hard bottom than a kilogram of steel in the same shape -- that being kind of the point of lead ballast, besides better balance. Underwater, the difference in density between lead and steel will be even more pronounced.

But lead ballast has a couple of drawbacks: (a) makes the anchor expensive to make; and (b) makes it hard or impossible to regalvanize the anchor. So if you are advancing the state of the art in a way which makes anchors without lead ballast penetrate better and have better balance, then this is just great.

The ultimate anchor would have a tungsten tip. Tungsten is almost twice as dense as lead, and it's hard and strong enough to use it by itself, rather than as poured-in ballast. It would make an absolutely killer anchor which would penetrate vastly better. You would have to make the flukes out of a different material, but I guess it could be bolted together or something. It would be expensive, but maybe not as expensive as it seems at first glance. Pure tungsten costs several dollars a gram, but ferro-tungsten, with 80% tungsten or so, is much cheaper, at about $50 per kg. So a 45 kilo anchor, for example, might have say 20 kilos of ferro-tungsten in the tip -- that's $1000 worth of material. That might double the price of a 45kg anchor -- very acceptable, I think -- less than the difference in cost to a stainless anchor.

This is no kind of radical idea -- ferro-tungsten has long been used for similar purposes, like ballast in airliner tails, ballast in F1 cars, racing boat keels, etc.

[Jim Cate]

Dockhead I think that Greg is saying that he uses a change in geometry to increase tip pressure rather than mass, and that this allows a finer entry into the sea bed.

I dunno if it works, but it sounds good if you say if fast!

Jim

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Dockhead I think that Greg is saying that he uses a change in geometry to increase tip pressure rather than mass, and that this allows a finer entry into the sea bed.

I dunno if it works, but it sounds good if you say if fast!

Jim

I also understood him that way. I just objected to the idea that lead ballast is "hard to shove into a hard bottom". But I suppose he means that if you can get the mass from outside of the tip -- I guess because it's balanced above the tip somewhere) -- rather than putting it into the tip, regardless of how dense the tip is, it's going to be "easier to shove in".

I guess that may be true, but it will still never be as well balanced as it would be if the mass were right in the tip itself, as it is in the Spade.

The more I think about ferro-tungsten tips for boat anchors, the more I like them. On reflection, I think you might need far less than half the mass of the anchor for this to work brilliantly. If you imagine something like a Spade anchor -- make the tip finer ("less volume to shove into a hard bottom"), and make just the last bit out of ferro-tungsten, say the last 15% or 20% of the length of the tip. This would be a relatively small mass of tungsten, but a dramatic change of balance and an increase of total mass of the anchor relative to its volume.

You will end up with a super-penetrating anchor which is superbly balanced and has a finer, sharper tip, but which is heavier than the same size regular Spade (a drawback). This will really be the bee's knees for setting in difficult bottoms, and it will set deeper and more securely requiring less scope to do so. It will not, however, have higher ultimate holding power than the same size regular Spade, although I suspect that this is not really an issue for most of us, as it is setting behavior, resetting behavior, and ability to sink into the seabed for security which we usually care most about.

If I could trade my own Spade -- 45kg -- for something like this which is the same size but weighs say 50kg -- and costs no more than double (I paid about $1500 for my anchor) -- I would do it in a heartbeat. An extra 5kg is not going to make a big difference to my windlass, but wow how that bugger would set and sink into the seabed.

[Factor]

Ahem - Manson Supreme and Sarca Excel need to be considered as well.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Factor

Ahem - Manson Supreme and Sarca Excel need to be considered as well.

Manson Supreme is mentioned above.

Sarca Excel is a plow anchor which looks just like a copy of a Delta, and is not considered by most people to be a "new generation" anchor at all. I know that this anchor has some fanatic fans, and Rex of AnchorRight has certainly done a great job of putting the word out about the Sarca -- but -- that's just the reality of most people's perception of it, whether justified or not.

[Factor]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Manson Supreme is mentioned above.

Sarca Excel is a plow anchor which looks just like a copy of a Delta, and is not considered by most people to be a "new generation" anchor at all. I know that this anchor has some fanatic fans, and Rex of AnchorRight has certainly done a great job of putting the word out about the Sarca -- but -- that's just the reality of most people's perception of it, whether justified or not.

Jeez, how many times do we have to have this discussion, its not a copy of the delta, it has SHHP rating the delta does not. It is quite different and works quite differently, and in independently reviewed real life tests, it holds where Rocnas twice the weight don't. It doesn't scoop up the bottom, it buries into it.

that's just the reality of most people's perception of it, whether justified or not

Yep lets not let facts and actual experience get in the way of the internet.

And I think Rex might know a bit about anchors, His Super Sarca roll bar anchor predated the Rocna by some time.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Factor

Jeez, how many times do we have to have this discussion, its not a copy of the delta, it has SHHP rating the delta does not. It is quite different and works quite differently, and in independently reviewed real life tests, it holds where Rocnas twice the weight don't. It doesn't scoop up the bottom, it buries into it.
Yep lets not let facts and actual experience get in the way of the internet.

And I think Rex might know a bit about anchors, His Super Sarca roll bar anchor predated the Rocna by some time.

I have no opinion at all about whether the Sarca Excel is a good anchor or not, because I have never used one (and deeply distrust anchor tests). It might be a crap knockoff of a mediocre anchor, or it might be the best anchor ever made, or anything in between -- I have no idea and have never expressed any opinion about it.

I was talking only about people's perception of it, which is the only thing about this anchor I know anything about. Maybe it's not a copy of a Delta, I don't know -- but it sure looks exactly like a very faithful copy, I mean exact in many details. If the Excel is not in fact a Delta copy, then it is unfortunate that it so closely resembles the Delta to such an uncanny degree, as very many of us have had bad experiences with Deltas.

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Greg, that is about the most honest and unbiased statement by a vendor that I have ever read. Kudos to you for your openness and fair appraisal.

We're happy enough with our Manson Supreme, but should I need to replace it, I would certainly entertain the idea of a Mantus. I still harbour enough distaste for the earlier practices of Rocna that I would not be looking at their products. What a difference in customer relations!

Cheers,

Jim.

Bingo. Apart from it being an excellent anchor, this is precisely why I won't use or recommend anything but Mantus. They have a great product, they're honest, and their customer service is... well...

Last year we bought our 40' Hunter in Kemah. I had been watching the Mantus pretty closely over the previous year or so and definitely liked what I saw from a performance standpoint. It was impressive.

So, I ordered the Mantus through SN for pickup at their Houston location. But I had an arm injury at the time and had trouble finding a way to get it to our new boat. Greg delivered it to our cockpit himself. You want to talk about great customer service? There you go.

Why would you buy anything else?

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Factor

Yep lets not let facts and actual experience get in the way of the internet.

Looking at the website it would appear that they don't have a European distributor, so the chances of 742.5 million people being able to decide themselves if it resembles a Delta is small. If it isn't readily available then not much point in discussing it is there.

So back to the original question, Mantus or Rocna.....

Pete