Photos of Anchors Setting

[noelex 77]

A Delta in 5m of water at 5:1, doing its typical Delta set.

My mermaid gave it a good inspection .

[Prairie Chicken]

Noelex, if I may ask, do you have a waterproof housing for your TG2 or are you depending on the camera's waterproof capabilities? If the latter, how long have you been diving with it & are you satisfied with it's durability? It sounds like a nice addition to my camera bag which would allow both anchor shots & some wet scenes.

[noelex 77]

Yes, it has been a great camera. There seem very few underwater anchor photos on Google to compare, but I have been very happy with the results. The very clear water here is a big help, but I think the camera is doing a good job. Most of the photos have been very well exposed and focused.

The other alternative is a Go Pro or similar. This gives better video. It also has a much wider lens, but slightly less good stills. It would be great to strap a Go Pro to the roll bar of the Mantus and take a video of the anchor dropping, landing on the bottom and digging in, but the TG2 has been better overall for my needs.

The TG2 selects a slow shutter speed underwater which means you have to be reasonably still to get sharp results. A camera with more manual control and a large sensor such as the Sony RX 100 or a DSLR would give better results, but they are more expensive and have the risk that a leaking housing would ruin a very expensive camera.

Overall it has been a great choice. The TG3 should be a bit better again, as it has a few refinements such as a brighter screen. This would help underwater when framing photos.

The camera itself is waterproof to 15m (I think the new TG3 is even a bit better).
This would deep enough, but we usually go for several snorkels each day and I think there is too much risk of an errant hair trapped in the seals with this sort of intensive use.

I therefore got the waterproof housing as well. This is about the same cost as the camera itself so not everyone would justify the expense.

There is good review of the different underwater camera options here:
Underwater Camera Articles: Best Underwater Compact Cameras for 2014

[noelex 77]

In contrast to the last Rocna, this anchor had some force applied. It was dropped in 8m with a scope of 5:1.

It is a 40kg Rocna. It has set quickly to this point, taking less than a metre. It is level with the fluke about 3/4 buried. There is almost no heaping up. A great result. The sand has been stirred up only by the chain moving a little.

[noelex 77]

This was a stockless anchor dropped by a tourist boat in very shallow water (about 2m). In the first photo the boat is just visible in the background.

You can see with the heavy stock and thick end plate this sort of anchor does not have much hope of penetrating. The flukes were reasonably buried although the fluke area is very small for the weight compared to a modern anchor.

[noelex 77]

This was an Ultra. The large powerboat actually had two Ultras on their bow, but only used one.

It was dropped very close to Mantus but off the shelf we are on and therefore in deep water of about 20m. I did not see the drop. They had let out a lot of chain (120m). The anchor was just sitting on the bottom, interestingly upright, which I would not have expected. There is no sign of a drag mark or any setting force.

If you don't set your Ultra this is what it looks like:

[kas_1611]

Oh for a waterproof camera!!

Stopped overnight in a tricky bay that sometimes gets an odd swell from the south even when the wind has been in the northerly quadrant for ages. Bed is weed covered with large areas of sand to be found.

We struggled to get our delta to set the first 2 times then thankfully one yacht decided they'd had lunch and left. They had been sat right in the middle of a sandy section in about 6m of water. Naturally we leapt into their space. Dropped using our usual technique and got a good hold at 3:1 (with reverse) then let out a little more to get to 3.5:1, couldn't go much further due to other boats. When I swam over the toe was well dug in with only 1 "ear" visible. Although the fish were doing their best to dig it back out.

I swam around and found an absolute howler. This is where I wish I had an U/W camera. It looked like a heart shaped Danforth/Fortress type anchor which was lying on the surface of the sand, not dug in at all and with the chain lying back over the top of it. No digging in or anything and obviously no setting force had been applied. Given the bay is lined with narly, jagged rocks you'd think the skipper would make sure his anchor was set and not just leave it lying there.

This makes me think that there is a school of thought amongst many sailors that runs thus "my anchor is down therefore it will hold me". Only good thing about this guys anchor was he had let out about 4:1 but that was it.

Thankfully he was downwind of us and for him we had virtually no wind all night otherwise it could have been a very sad story.

Waterproof camera is on the Christmas list :-)

Keiron

[noelex 77]

This Kobra was not doing very well, slowly dragging on its side.
It had been dropped on a short scope of a little bit less than 3:1 in 5m of water.

The boat was only stopping for a swim so the slow drag was not of any great concern. These sort of scopes in shallow water are a tough test for any anchor, but the sand looks reasonably soft and I am surprised the Kobra did not at least make a bit more of an effort. It was dragging very slowly and had only moved about 2m at this stage. The convex plow anchors usually take a long time to set so perhaps there is some hope it would have dug in given longer, but it did not look hopeful.

[noelex 77]

This was a genuine Bugel. This was at a different anchorage from any of the other shots. Anchor photography keeps you fit ,

It had been dropped in a patch of weed in 8m @ 4:1. It was a weird type of weed. This is one of the problems with assessing anchor performance in weed. The weed structure can vary enormously in only a small geographic area.

The Bugel was doing a great job. It had set quickly in only a metre or so. The fluke had penetrated the weed into the underlying substrate. A great result.

[jongleur]

How do you assess scope in all these pix?
Do you ask the skipper of each boat? Do
you actually measure? Maybe you've
already answered this. I've followed this
whole great thread and don't remember
seeing it.

Thanks for all the pix.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by jongleur

How do you assess scope in all these pix?

Sometimes the chain is marked, sometimes it just an estimate. If it is important I do a timed swim (see post #754).

The depth is an estimate. I know the depth to our own anchor and this serves a reference. The difficulty diving down also gives a good clue. I can get a measurement from the depth sounder in the dingy if it is critical.

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

Great and thanks to all those who have contributed photos so far.

The TG3 is almost the same as my TG2, so you may find these settings useful.

The settings I have found best are:

Flash off
Timer off
Exposure -0.3
Underwater 1 (the fish setting)
ISO auto
Sequential shooting
12m
4:3

These settings can be saved on C1 (or C2) so they are easy to reproduce.
Most of the shots I take are at maximum wide angle.

It is worth using a photo program to add a bit more contrast especially on the deeper shots. I use Snapseed.

I'm surprised to read you are flash off. I guess the WB fish setting corrects the colour.

I have programmed C1 as you suggested. It seem that the TG-3 loses the C2 option and gains "photo story" on the dial.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by hoppy

I'm surprised to read you are flash off. I guess the WB fish setting corrects the colour.

I have programmed C1 as you suggested. It seem that the TG-3 loses the C2 option and gains "photo story" on the dial.

Yes the colour correction is very good. The fish setting introduces a digital red filter that seems to work as well as a physical filter. The colour is normally good without any correction, although if you increase the contrast it tends to wash out the blue.

The flash is only pretty weak and I don't think any of the pictures I have posted were flash photographs. The housing absorbs some of the flash so it may work better with the camera "naked"

I would experiment a bit you may well find something that works better.

[downunder]

The flash being so close to the lens would also get backscatter from particles in the water.

A proper marine flash moves the flash well away from the lens to overcome this issue. Colour from a flash is not an issue for anchors only proper exposure.

cheers

[noelex 77]

This anchor was off a large trimaran. I love multihulls because they always anchor in shallow water which provides great lighting for photos .

This was only in 4m at 2:1. There were some mean rocks less than a boat length away. Scary, given the anchor's appearance and scope.

This also illustrates another reason why it better to set your anchor properly. Burying the fluke makes it much less likely to pick up the chain with a wind shift as has happened here. The chain will probably pull out from under the anchor if any force is put on it, but there is a risk of it continuing to drag in this attitude for a long distance.

The anchor cannot be blamed for any of this. It looks like a stainless steel Spade, but there a few discrepancies and I think this was a copy.








Notice the chain lifting at the short scope: