Photos of Anchors Setting

[NornaBiron]

Another good set for our Spade. Has anyone lost their
Wellington boot?

[noelex 77]

Sorry, I am a couple of days behind with these photos.

This was a genuine Bruce dropped by a 40 foot private powerboat. They did not stay overnight.

The Bruce has rotated completely level. The fluke and most of the shank are buried. There is a some heaping up, but overall a good result. The setting distance is a bit hard to pick. There was a long very shallow drag mark. These tend to be caused by the boat concerned dragging the anchor back at very little scope. The final bury after the anchor caught shows a very rapid bury.

[colemj]

Finally got back to where the water is clear. Unfortunately, our underwater camera packed it up right as we were going to take a pic. So here is a surface pic of our Rocna in 2 meters of water and perfect sand bottom with 15 meter of chain.

Doesn't really testify to much since this is about the best anchoring conditions one could get, and I think even a CQR would set and bury well here . The set was within the length of the fluke and the anchor is completely buried with no heaping.

I had to play with the color and contrast to make it show well, which is why it looks funky - I am a very poor photographer.

Mark

[noelex 77]

Some friends of ours were at a nearby island so we moved across to see them.

It is not our kind of anchorage, as it is noisy and busy with a mud bottom and less clear water. There are a large number of laid moorings and all the other boats in the bay are using these.

I prefer to rely on my own anchoring gear. In fact the last time I used a mooring was about 5 years ago.

The bottom looks like medium mud with some very light scattered weed. The moorings restricted the anchoring area and we dropped in 13.3m at a scope of only 2.7:1.

I am gaining a lot of confidence that the Mantus sets very well at these short scopes. The relatively deep 13.3m depth is a help, but this set is still very impressive showing no signs of problems created by the short scope. In the softer mud bottom the anchor has actually set a bit deeper than normal. If it was not for the roll bar nothing else of the anchor is visible. The slightly longer setting distance compared to normal for the Mantus is the only indication of the shorter scope.

Sorry, it's not a very good photo, as we arrived late in the day and this was taken from the surface. I will try to get some better photos.

[Rumplestiltskin]

Hmmm I did a Google search for hot girls with tattoos and it led me to this thread. Weird.

[noelex 77]

This is a better photo of the Mantus:

[noelex 77]

This anchorage does not have much room with present wind direction and the Mantus has once again set extremely well on a shortish scope in 5m @ 3:1.

The fluke and shank are completely buried well under the surface in this softish sand. There would be nothing to see if not for the roll bar. It has once again set in less than a shank length.

The floating buoy that I use is trapped under the fluke again. This probably has little impact, but is not ideal. The Mantus and the Rocna actually fall quite differently. The Rocna tends to fall just like a stone any which way. The Mantus generally stays upright and tends to "fly" first forward, stalls, then backwards. It repeats the cycle staying upright. This has the advantage that it almost always lands the same way, but obviously traps the floating buoy under the fluke on occasion.

I drop the anchor from the bow roller. It might be better to drop the anchor from from a few feet under so the buoy is floating before the drop starts. Another solution would be to shorten the line so that it cannot reach under the roll bar. The Mantus roll bar is quite tall and it is unlikely that the top of the roll bar would bury so deeply that a even a short floating line would not be visible.

[noelex 77]

This was a convex plow anchor set in 6m@7:1. I am reasonably sure it is a Delta. It was a charter boat that only stayed a few hours.

I have been searching since I bought the underwater camera for a well set example of this class of anchor. The "Delta" has set nicely with only the very tips of its fluke visible. It has taken a reasonable distance to set and there is is a bit of heaping up, but unlike my previous shots of this anchor, the fluke has nicely penetrated into the substrate instead of just scraping along and heaping it up.

The main reason for the better performance is nice soft sand at this anchorage. In substrates without a hard underlying layer the Delta can penetrate deeply and do well. In even softer substrates unfortunately the convex blade shape and limited surface area do reduce the maximum drag that can be produced, but in medium soft to soft sand it is a good anchor as this example shows.

[noelex 77]

This is a good series of photos showing the Mantus "shuffling" around to a change in wind direction.

First the starting point. My Mermaid dropped these two stones. They have been placed in line with the roll bar to act as a reference point. I previously did this routinely with my anchor and usually a few others in the anchorage.

I have found that with photographing all the anchors this has become unnecessary, but there are few features around the anchor at the moment and in this soft sand the drag/rotation marks tend to get filled in reasonably quickly. The stones make it easier to see what is going on.

This is the starting point with the wind from the south. Photos of the effect of the change in wind direction to follow:

[noelex 77]

The wind quite rapidly swung around about 145 degrees. Many people imagine their anchor immediately rotating around, but a well set anchor needs a reasonable amount of wind force to start moving at all:

[noelex 77]

Here the Mantus has "shuffled" around. You can see the sweep of the shank. Note if you look at the reference stones the anchor has not moved other than rotating. The fluke and the shank have remained completely buried under the substrate.

There is no suggestion that the anchor has "broken out" and needs to drag and reset itself.

Note:All anchors become a little more vulnerable as they are rotating, but there is a vast difference between anchors that do this well in this regard, as the Mantus has done, and those that perform poorly.

[noelex 77]

The Mantus has now shuffled around about 160 degrees. You can see the stones are still pointing at the roll bar. There has been no movement other than rotation. You can see the original mark of the chain leading off to the top left of the photo.

(Sorry this shot was from the surface while I was in the tender. It is getting a bit cold to dive frequently)

[noelex 77]

My Mermaid braved the cold to take this underwater picture of the end of the "shuffle":

[kas_1611]

An impressive set of photos and performance from the Mantus. Plus big thanks to your Mermaid for her icy bath

Cheers

Keiron

[noelex 77]

I have been in this anchorage before. Unfortunately, much of it has very poor holding with only a small amount of softer substrate over rock. This was the only anchorage where my Rocna has dragged.

This was the Mantus set. Acceptable, rather than great. Unfortunately only a shot from the surface as it was too cold even for my mermaid.

I did see some other evidence on this occasion of the poor holding with a German boat that could not get their anchor to set after many attemps and left for greener pastures.

I also had to go and rescue a charter boat that was dragging while the occupants were unaware (Delta anchor) at 10pm. They had dragged about 500m by the time I got to them.