Love My Manson, but My Delta Is Incredible !

[Dulcesuenos]

I know I know, another Anchor Thread, as if the the horse can't get any deader, but I just had to brag about how well our delta did this past long weekend.
2 weeks ago at the offshore boat races we had 2 smaller power boats tied up to us and with 50' of 5/16 chain and another 60' of rope we still dragged slowly no matter what in 14' of water with a sandy , clay bottom. Winds were NNE around 10 kts.
This past weekend was our get together for harvest moon, and we had a total of 3 other boats tied to us for 2 nights thru steady ENE winds at 15-17kts for the entire time I had out 50' of chain and 40 ' of line on outr 35 lb delta we never dragged once even with a direction change.
There were over 40,ooo lbs of boat on the one Delta and it never budged!!
Way to go! I am a believer now , (but will still use the Manson when its just us or as a lunch hook)

On a side note the water slapping noise on everyones boat made it crappy sleeping....

[Therapy]

Unbelievable!

Way to go.

We thought you had pretty big ones when we saw the boats start piling up. Then the big power boat to port - eek!

"Surely they would add at least one other anchor..............."

"Well, if they drag it will be a while before they get to us..........."

"I wonder what will happen when the wind shifts around Midnight.........."

We were SE of you on Friday night and I have anchored there before several times. It is grass on mud and in 20 (SE) knots not 100 ft from where we were I drug a 30 lb Rocna and then a 30 lb Delta. We moved.

Further S (still N of Anclote) I drug a 20 lb delta in 10 knots.

This time we were on the Manson Supreme and did not move a foot. The gps said 80 ft at sunset and 80 ft in the morning. We were happy with that. The highest wind we saw was 18 knots between 0245 and 0400 when I was up because I just knew with the shift we would end up with rudders into the sand in reverse. Wrong again.

When we came in and dropped the hook I told the wife I wanted to slide by and ask you if there is an area of sand in as close as you were. But while I don't mind anyone coming up to me for info I am too shy to interrupt someone else. Is there sand where you were? What is the depth that far in.

Glad you had a nice time. We did OK except for the lack of sleep because of worry over the wind change to come.

[barnakiel]

You never know where the hook falls down - maybe there was something that the Delta got onto? Maybe the Mason fell on a patch with weed? ETC..

We went from CQR to Bruce. That was because our heavier CQR repeatedly failed to dig in - different bottoms, different conditions, same issue over and again. We went for a lighter Bruce and have never looked back - countless anchorings and single cases of failure to dig in or hold.

I always heard good reports on Delta. No wonder you fell in love with yours.

b.

[Kettlewell]

To the OP--not sure what you are saying here. Are you saying you dragged with the Manson in the same location? It isn't mentioned within the post, just in the title. To be truly comparable you would have had to have used both anchors in the same location with similar raft ups and wind speeds. Almost any anchor can perform amazingly well if well dug in with good holding ground.

[Bash]

Delta works great in some bottoms, and works poorly in others. We got rid of ours when we discovered how poorly it dealt with silt and soft mud.

We used to carry a bruce and a delta. The bruce performed poorly in vegetation, where the delta did far better. The bruce did much better in mud and silt than the delta.

The reason we moved to a rocna was that it did well in all these situations.

[foggysail]

Originally Posted by Bash

Delta works great in some bottoms, and works poorly in others. We got rid of ours when we discovered how poorly it dealt with silt and soft mud.

I traveled the Delta route, almost into moorings.......at 3:30AM. But at what other times would an anchor decide to follow the wind and currents?

Last year I purchased a new 88# Delta that I used ONCE this summer. Water depth was shallow and I had over 60' thereabout of 5/16"HT holding my anchor. I do believe that our anchorages are now filling with ell grass.

Just replaced the Delta which is resting peacefully in my basement with an 80# Manson Supreme.

Foggy

[noelex 77]

An anchor that holds with a lot of boats rafted up sounds like an impressive performance, but wind loads go up as the square of the wind speed so the equivalent wind speed to a single boat lying at the same anchor is only slightly higher.
The wind speeds are quoted in this thread are very light and a very minimally set anchor, of almost any design, should hold.
The real test for any anchor comes at much higher wind speeds.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Bash

Delta works great in some bottoms, and works poorly in others. We got rid of ours when we discovered how poorly it dealt with silt and soft mud.

We used to carry a bruce and a delta. The bruce performed poorly in vegetation, where the delta did far better. The bruce did much better in mud and silt than the delta.

The reason we moved to a rocna was that it did well in all these situations.

+1

Exactly the same as my experience.

My present boat came with a 55 pound Delta as a bower anchor. It was very hard to set in the mud and silt of the English Channel, and I had many cases where I simply couldn't set it at all, and had to move off to find another spot.

I changed it for a Rocna (admittedly more than twice the size). Not as easy to set as the Spade on the old boat, but would eventually always set. And once set, always held.

In soft mud, the Rocna would often drag for quite a long ways before burying itself deep enough to hold. But again -- once it started holding, it never let go.

[Dulcesuenos]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

An anchor that holds with a lot of boats rafted up sounds like an impressive performance, but wind loads go up as the square of the wind speed so the equivalent wind speed to a single boat lying at the same anchor is only slightly higher.
The wind speeds are quoted in this thread are very light and a very minimally set anchor, of almost any design, should hold.
The real test for any anchor comes at much higher wind speeds.

Sounds like Fuzzy math and to say a minimally set anchor or almost any design should hold that many boats with That much windage in 15+ knots for over two days with wind shifts. I did leave out that it had gusted up well over 20kts several times and as Therapy can attest middle of the night / early am on Fri, the winds changed and gusts were Much higher most likely in the 30 kts range as the front rolled through. I feel there is no way our 25lb manson could have performed any where near as well,,,though the manson is still a great anchor!

Ps Therapy any time you guys see us out there please stop on by, would love to see your cat up close!!! also there is scattered sand patches in the area which is what we dropped on, but lots of soft mud and grass as well.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Dulcesuenos

Sounds like Fuzzy math and to say a minimally set anchor or almost any design should hold that many boats with That much windage in 15+ knots for over two days with wind shifts. I did leave out that it had gusted up well over 20kts several times and as Therapy can attest middle of the night / early am on Fri, the winds changed and gusts were Much higher most likely in the 30 kts range as the front rolled through. I feel there is no way our 25lb manson could have performed any where near as well,,,though the manson is still a great anchor!

Ps Therapy any time you guys see us out there please stop on by, would love to see your cat up close!!! also there is scattered sand patches in the area which is what we dropped on, but lots of soft mud and grass as well.

OK, thanks.

I gotta look for the sand patches in closer.

[Cheechako]

Each anchor has a bottom condition it will work in well. I've had a 45 delta hold a 42 ft cat with a lot of windage for a long time in winds of 30 gust to 40. Plain sand bottom, no shift. I also had the same anchor fail quickly with a 180 degree wind shift! I still like the Delta. To me the ultimate anchor in straight, no shift , holding is the Danforth. But the ultimate test of an anchor is wind shift really. Which one will pull out and reset well while dragging in a 180 degree strong shift?

Ohhhh, I dislike rafting..... everytime it seems to end up in a fire drill!

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Dulcesuenos

Sounds like Fuzzy math and to say a minimally set anchor or almost any design should hold that many boats with That much windage in 15+ knots for over two days with wind shifts. I did leave out that it had gusted up well over 20kts several times and as Therapy can attest middle of the night / early am on Fri, the winds changed and gusts were Much higher most likely in the 30 kts range as the front rolled through. I feel there is no way our 25lb manson could have performed any where near as well,,,though the manson is still a great anchor!

I live at anchor over 300 days a year, so my observations are based on experience not fuzzy math’s. A wind of 15K plus and gusts over 20 to 30 knots are considered a light wind in many parts of the world. Good and bad anchors can only be evaluated in much more challenging conditions.

Rafting up in these conditions will only place a moderate load on the anchor. its unlikely even a small Manson Supreme would struggle if deployed with adequate scope.

[roger.waite]

Not sure I care too much for the 'precision' of maths. To do a disservice to a nice line from "Pirates of the Caribbean", anchoring codes and calculations are "more like guidelines".

You never quite know what the hook is in, or what wind or tide may do.

How well would the raft separate if it dragged in the wee hours? But it sounds like there were other reasons to loose sleep! Nothing downwind? Then no worries?

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by Bash

Delta works great in some bottoms, and works poorly in others. We got rid of ours when we discovered how poorly it dealt with silt and soft mud.

We used to carry a bruce and a delta. The bruce performed poorly in vegetation, where the delta did far better. The bruce did much better in mud and silt than the delta.

The reason we moved to a rocna was that it did well in all these situations.

I've had two times where my Rocna wouldn't grab because of thick, wide kelp. Instead of setting it would just grab a couple hundred pounds of kelp and drag. I really wished I had a delta those nights.

[Robin3]

Originally Posted by foggysail

I traveled the Delta route, almost into moorings.......at 3:30AM. But at what other times would an anchor decide to follow the wind and currents?

Last year I purchased a new 88# Delta that I used ONCE this summer. Water depth was shallow and I had over 60' thereabout of 5/16"HT holding my anchor. I do believe that our anchorages are now filling with ell grass.

Just replaced the Delta which is resting peacefully in my basement with an 80# Manson Supreme.

Foggy

If you are anywhere near St Augustine or Daytona Beach and can wait until we get back to our boat there next Spring, I''ll happily take that Delta off your hands! I rate the Delta highly, including lots of use in English Channel Mr D! We will be switching our current Bruce 66lb and the Delta is top of the list. Spade is good but too expensive by far, I can go up two sizes in Delta and still get loads of change! Manson and Rocna roll bars are a problem for our bow plank, unless I do some surgery or spend more money. Don't trust Rocna anyway.