Using your new anchor with kinetic rope

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by groundtackle

Thin, give me your shipping address and I'll send you your Aluminum Excel, whatever size you like. You need to play with this thing.
I'll trade it for a copy of your new book.
Chris
250.516.7888

Sound like a great idea. As a multihull sailor, I’d love to hear a non biased view of the performance of your aluminum Excel. Currently we use an aluminum Spade, and have been quite happy with it.

[groundtackle]

TW, Thin works hard for all of us, he is worthy. I think the Excel is better and not because I sell it.
Most of the aluminums go to multis and racey vessels but believe all can use some weight loss.
I'm using a #2 Excel with 30' 1/4" G43 and 250' 7/16' nylon 3 strand. 30' mono 5000lbs (Mega and I love it, brutally handsome).
I won't go back to heavy anchors. It works in the PNW and its challenging.
C

[CassidyNZ]

It appears that the popular consensus is that newer design anchors have better holding power than older (say, CQR) anchors and this allows one to reduce anchor weight and achieve the same holding power.

I just wonder why any one would want to squander the advantage gained by modern anchor design by reducing the weight and save, what, 10lbs? Seems like poor trade-off to me. The beer I have on board weighs a lot more than 10lbs. I wouldn’t sacrifice peace-of-mind for that.

The kinetic rope concept coupled with shorter chain and a lighter anchor would seem to me the spot-on recipe for the acceleration generated by the rope to yank the anchor free rather than cushion anything. It works on cars stuck in mud, why not anchors?

I will stick to my heavy old anchor and 75metres of 10mm (3/8) chain. But I’ve been called a Luddite on this board more than once.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by CassidyNZ

...I just wonder why any one would want to squander the advantage gained by modern anchor design by reducing the weight and save, what, 10lbs? Seems like poor trade-off to me. The beer I have on board weighs a lot more than 10lbs. I wouldn’t sacrifice peace-of-mind for that....

Good points, but...

Why didn't we carry anchors that were 10 pounds heavier before? Surely the designer could have added a 1/6 of a cubic foot of buoyancy forward.

Serious question. What changed? We like more security than our fathers? We're wimpier? We drink more beer? We're lazier? All good reasons, but which one(s)? I guess the first one. We are more safety conscious, which is good to a point.

[rslifkin]

I think part of it is that anchor designs have become more flexible (in terms of bottom types), plus windlasses have become more ubiquitous, so there's more desire to have a single "do it all" anchor instead of choosing between multiple based on bottom type and expected wind, etc. (especially if hand-hauling was required).

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Good points, but...

Why didn't we carry anchors that were 10 pounds heavier before? Surely the designer could have added a 1/6 of a cubic foot of buoyancy forward.

Serious question. What changed? We like more security than our fathers? We're wimpier? We drink more beer? We're lazier? All good reasons, but which one(s)? I guess the first one. We are more safety conscious, which is good to a point.

Have things changed? If so, I bet it has more to do with the fact that everyone now has a windlass. Plus the fact that average boat size has crept up (hence, the need for a windlass).

What has definitely changed for me is that where I used to carry, and routinely use, two different bower anchors, now I only need one. I carried a large CQR, along with an large Danforth. I would routinely alter between these two, depending on the anticipated bottom.

Now, my one scoop-style (Rocna) covers most* of the same range as these two did. So instead of two bowers hanging off the bow, there is now one.

*I think a Danforth still does better in certain substrates. This is why I carry a large Danforth, and an even larger Fortress. But they don't get used that much anymore.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Have things changed? If so, I bet it has more to do with the fact that everyone now has a windlass. Plus the fact that average boat size has crept up (hence, the need for a windlass).

What has definitely changed for me is that where I used to carry, and routinely use, two different bower anchors, now I only need one. I carried a large CQR, along with an large Danforth. I would routinely alter between these two, depending on the anticipated bottom.

Now, my one scoop-style (Rocna) covers most* of the same range as these two did. So instead of two bowers hanging off the bow, there is now one.

*I think a Danforth still does better in certain substrates. This is why I carry a large Danforth, and an even larger Fortress. But they don't get used that much anymore.

Good answer. But would a 10- to 20-pound larger CQR have offered the same security? I think yes. But we didn't think we needed it. And we didn't have windlasses.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Good points, but...

Why didn't we carry anchors that were 10 pounds heavier before? Surely the designer could have added a 1/6 of a cubic foot of buoyancy forward.

Serious question. What changed? We like more security than our fathers? We're wimpier? We drink more beer? We're lazier? All good reasons, but which one(s)? I guess the first one. We are more safety conscious, which is good to a point.

The cruising community collectively gained knowledge and skill, and gradually started anchoring better.


I started out cruising with my father, decades ago. He had a CQR and Danforth just like Mike. We struggled and struggled to get that bloody CQR set in any bottom other than clean sand or firm mud, and whenever the wind blew up over 20 knots, we would drag anchor, unless we had an absolutely perfect set in absolutely perfect bottom. It really was par for the course because everyone else was dragging, too. So we just didn't expect to sleep at anchor if the weather was boisterous. This was before chart plotters or anchor alarms, so I spent many a night in the cockpit looking at transits in those days. Sometimes even with the engine running.



That was all we knew, so we thought that was normal -- goes with the territory. Then the Delta anchor came out, and that was a whole leap forward. Our friends were upgrading and UPSIZING their anchors, and we did, too.


Then some years after that, we bought one of the first Spades made, and we took it up yet another size bigger. I think that was the end of the '90s, and from that day, the whole business of anchoring was totally transformed for us.



Meanwhile Dashew and others are writing about bigger anchors -- Dashew in particular has a superb chapter on anchoring in his Cruising Encylopedia from I think around the year 2000 which turned upside down a number of things we believed up until then. Dashew wrote that when others laugh at the outsized anchor in your bow roller, you know it's almost big enough.


About this time, Rocna and Manson roll bar anchors started to be sold in numbers, and it was a revolution. People were now sizing them a couple of sizes bigger than what we used in the olden days. And suddenly people were getting their anchors set first time most of the time, and hardly ever dragged any more.


Just the evolution of the anchoring art, I think.

[Adelie]

Apparently this thread has been accidentally closed twice and has now been reopened for a 2nd time.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[motion30]

I have a question for you old timers ,Did any of you guys upgrade your old style anchors from the factory size or did you mostly use what came with the boat . I ask this because I see some new boats with pathetically small anchors

[Izikalvo]

Originally Posted by motion30

I have a question for you old timers ,Did any of you guys upgrade your old style anchors from the factory size or did you mostly use what came with the boat . I ask this because I see some new boats with pathetically small anchors

Not that I consider myself an old timer... when we have started to sail our Janneau 43DS the last decade, I got with the boat an old 20 Kg Danforth anchor that was doing ok in calm weather, in heavy weather it refused to set or hold too many times, we installed Viking 10 (9.5 kg) as our main anchor and so far so good.

[Pete7]

So, back to the original question, would you use a kinetic rope?

Izikalvo, have you tried using a kinetic rope in strong wind conditions?

Pete

[Izikalvo]

Originally Posted by Pete7

So, back to the original question, would you use a kinetic rope?

Izikalvo, have you tried using a kinetic rope in strong wind conditions?

Pete

As for the kinetic rope, no, I did not try it, that it also why i asked for old-timers opinions here, so far as you can see most are against it, still gathering information.

The idea of losing weight without compromising performance is very appealing to me, I believe that in 10 years from now we will see self-drilling anchors with no chain at all, act as a mooring just below the bow of your boat, but, again, time will tell.

[Michael Cobbe]

It depends on what sort of sailing you do rope and chain are often used by short distance salilors who don't anchor for long and the weather forecast is likely to be right.


All chain is preferable if you sail longer distances because the weather changes, if the wind picks a lot rope and chain can be a problem. My view was that I put out enough chain for the current wind speed so the weight of the catenary held the boat and the anchor was the backup for when the wind picked up.



Also be aware that some bad weather is not in the forecast so keep an eye on the barometerr. Two exmples were a gale across Biscay with 30 knots gusting 50 and a secondary low in the English Channnel with 50 knots gusting 80, both times we reefed in advance.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Izikalvo

Not that I consider myself an old timer... when we have started to sail our Janneau 43DS the last decade, I got with the boat an old 20 Kg Danforth anchor that was doing ok in calm weather, in heavy weather it refused to set or hold too many times, we installed Viking 10 (9.5 kg) as our main anchor and so far so good.

And that's the total of your experience anchoring?


Are you the owner of the company which makes the Viking anchor? What made you want to get into the anchor making business?