Anchoring Perfectionism vs Realities of Soft Mud

[Steve Bedford]

The manufacturers of the Super MAX Anchor would be very open to participating in the suggested testing protocol in the New Orleans area. There are more questions to be answered and clarified but the initial ideas are promising.
Steve

[Fortress]

Steve,

Maybe we should enlist Rudy Sechez to write the story, an exclusive possibly?

Brian

[Steve Bedford]

Originally Posted by Fortress

Steve,

Maybe we should enlist Rudy Sechez to write the story, an exclusive possibly?

Brian

I would agree with that recommendation. Fair, unbiased, anchoring expert (I know that word causes some to cringe but he is).
Steve

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by Fortress

Greg, thanks for your very generous offer. It sounds like a challenging sea bottom and perfect for a test. Is it in an area that is common for anchoring?

Brian

The area I envision testing in is decidedly not a common area for anchoring, at least not for more than an afternoon hook. The area is unprotected and the bottom holds so poorly no one trusts it. The upside is there will be no furrows that could effect the testing, the downside is if the weather is bad it could make the test difficult to do. In the event of poor weather, we can simply relocate to the other side of Lake Pontchertrain (about 1 hour away) which will be protected if the other side of the lake isn't.

[Snowpetrel]

Sounds like a great test greg. Two other tests that would be very interesting would be a soak test. Say leaving the anchors overnight or over lunch and seeing if the holding goes up in the morning. And also testing two different anchors of the same type but different weights to see if the ratio of holding changes with size.

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[Stumble]

I am hesitant about allowing an exclusive. I wouldn't say no to it necessarily, but do have a condition.

That all of the raw data collected is made freely available to the public at the same time the article is published, or within six months (or whatever time period is required for publication agreed to in advance) whichever comes first. Just like any scientific testing the results must be made public.

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Sounds like a great test greg. Two other tests that would be very interesting would be a soak test. Say leaving the anchors overnight or over lunch and seeing if the holding goes up in the morning. And also testing two different anchors of the same type but different weights to see if the ratio of holding changes with size.

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On the soak test... I am not sure how to design a testing protocol around this. At least not without a fleet of identicle boats that could be left overnight on the hook. Maybe talk to the fleet of Easterly 30's and see if they would all spend the night on anchor watch... But I doubt it.

I would be happy to test multiple anchors from the same manufacturer. But my concept is to force the manufacturers to use what they would recommend. I send this in a pm a few minutes ago, but my concept would be to define a boat (Beneteau 40, with dodger, biminie, roller furling headsail, and loaded to 75% of its max design displacement) then have all the manufacturers send the anchor they would recommend for that specific boat. This way we not only get to test the anchors size to size, but the specific recommendation process the manufacturer would make for a customers boat.

If the manufacturers want to stick around and do follow up testing on larger/smaller anchors I will happily stay out there pulling anchors until we are done.

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by Panope

Greg, very generous offer. I hope some folks/manufactures contribute.

RE: Test Protocal: Try and execute multiple (5 or 10) 180 degree re-set passes as I have found that the anchors will often (roughly 80% of the time for me) rotate in the seabed. If you only do one pass, and the anchor holds, it may not reveal what happens when the anchor does the infamous 'backflip'

When doing this test aboard Panope, I drive up and over the anchor with forward motion, thus achieving great course accuracy. However, there is danger that when the anchor rode comes up tight, the rode will rise and become entangled in the propeller(s). This is not a concern aboard Panope as the mid section of the hull is lower than the propeller and therefore providing protection. I assume that your powerboat will not be the same. If you must do all your pulling in reverse, it may be difficult to execute accurate 180 degree course reversals.

Steve

I think it's going to be somewhat time dependent. If you are doing this with three anchors it's easy to do multiple sets, if we had 20 designs show up it gets more time consuming.

I think 5 pulls would be the minimum for statistical significance, and I would want to do 5 strait set/breaks then 5 set/rotate/break. To start, and see how much time it takes. But the specific protocol would have to be hammered out in detail once the parties are defined.

Luckily the boat we would test from has twin engines and a bow thruster, so it's possible to spin the boat in its own length pretty easily. We can set at say 000 then spin to 180 before putting any load on the anchor.

[Snowpetrel]

On the soak test, Id be inclined just to leave them sitting with no load on all night, or for an hour or so over lunch. With the reversal tests could two boats be used together with two tails off the rode to rapidly and accurately do the 180 tests?

[Pete7]

Dockhead I am slightly surprised you were unable to use full reverse in Osborne Bay. We probably anchor closer in than you but have noticed there is a weed close in. Swimming you can feel it around your legs, it spooks Viv. The weed floats upwards in long thin strings like spaghetti. Close in the bottom is firm clay like substance that makes a mess of my deck when it comes up with the anchor. Not sure what its like on the 5m contour but should be thin sand over thick mud. The sand washes over the bottom with the tide, the mud is like clay.

Interestingly the only time we have pulled an anchor (Rocna) with max reverse was in Studland Bay, supposedly good holding. up it came covered in Eel grass. I now only use medium revs to dig the anchor in. A month ago I swam over the chain in Studland to see what had happened after a wind change during the night. Seems we were lying to a large 20m loop of chain in 1.2m and the anchor doing nothing.

I wonder if you are worrying unnecessarily. I also wonder what the bollard pull of a 100hp engine going 2500 revs is and how does this compare with the probable worst wind and tide that could be expected in that location.

Pete

[Steadman Uhlich]

Originally Posted by thinwater

I suppose you have noticed that no one agrees with Peter. I wonder what folks think about that. He's a smart guy.

Yes, I noticed that.

I think direct testing under controlled conditions and across a range of types is useful. Like Panope's testing.

As for the testing done by the manufacturers, or their surrogates, there can be some cause to wonder about those tests, particularly as they reach conclusions based on testing that has been documented on video to have unexplainable results in testing measurements based on instruments, and failures to set that are not observed directly or without understanding WHY the results were so different from test to test.
------

I would like to see how any anchor behaves with close and direct uncut video observation, like PANOPE has shown.

I would want to see that kind of observation in different bottoms, and most importantly with veering tests too.

[groundtackle]

We recently started Ground Tackle Marine (www.groundtackle.com) and represent Anchor Right Australia products in North America including Sarca Execl and Super Sarca anchors.
We like the suggested anchor size (40' sail). Steve has done such a great job with his library of videos, continued testing with same size range of anchors seems like a good idea. Having said that we agree that test materials and methods should rightfully be determined by the boating community.
We'd also be enthusiastic participants if this plan to test / compare anchors in soft mud goes ahead.
New Orleans when the PNW weather deteriorates sounds lovely.

Nick Shaw & Chris Eldridge



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[groundtackle]

Oops that should read Sarca Excel
You'd think I could spell the product we sell but apparently not!
Nick


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[Fortress]

Originally Posted by Steady Hand

Yes, I noticed that.

I think direct testing under controlled conditions and across a range of types is useful. Like Panope's testing.

As for the testing done by the manufacturers, or their surrogates, there can be some cause to wonder about those tests, particularly as they reach conclusions based on testing that has been documented on video to have unexplainable results in testing measurements based on instruments, and failures to set that are not observed directly or without understanding WHY the results were so different from test to test.
------

I would like to see how any anchor behaves with close and direct uncut video observation, like PANOPE has shown.

I would want to see that kind of observation in different bottoms, and most importantly with veering tests too.

I look forward to seeing the results of Greg's testing that might be without the sophistication of using a running line tensiometer (which cost $5,000 per week) to measure line tension during pull tests, or calculating the effect of the dynamic positioning system (DPS) of the 81-ft Rachel Carson research vessel that we used which cost $270 per hour plus fuel.

Fortunately during the Chesapeake Bay testing we had the consulting services and expertise of a retired US Navy soil mechanics and anchor design expert with over 45 years of experience who set up the protocol and reviewed and analyzed the pull test results.

Additionally in the bottom described by Greg, underwater video such as Steve's will be impossible due to the murkiness of the water and the soft mud bottom, and so to measure anchor behavior, sensors might have to be installed on the anchors which will obviously add to the cost of the testing.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Dockhead I am slightly surprised you were unable to use full reverse in Osborne Bay. We probably anchor closer in than you but have noticed there is a weed close in. Swimming you can feel it around your legs, it spooks Viv. The weed floats upwards in long thin strings like spaghetti. Close in the bottom is firm clay like substance that makes a mess of my deck when it comes up with the anchor. Not sure what its like on the 5m contour but should be thin sand over thick mud. The sand washes over the bottom with the tide, the mud is like clay.

Interestingly the only time we have pulled an anchor (Rocna) with max reverse was in Studland Bay, supposedly good holding. up it came covered in Eel grass. I now only use medium revs to dig the anchor in. A month ago I swam over the chain in Studland to see what had happened after a wind change during the night. Seems we were lying to a large 20m loop of chain in 1.2m and the anchor doing nothing.

I wonder if you are worrying unnecessarily. I also wonder what the bollard pull of a 100hp engine going 2500 revs is and how does this compare with the probable worst wind and tide that could be expected in that location.

Pete

I have always had this experience in Osborne Bay. Obviously we anchor much further out than the other yachts, so maybe the bottom is different there.

I've always found the holding in Studland to be perfect. Must be all the dead seahorses

In the event, after three days in Osborne Bay, the anchor turned out to be well set and deeply buried. Conditions were always calm and I think the anchor was never stressed (my experience about loops of chain agrees with yours), so I don't think we know what it would have held if the wind had blown up. But the anchor felt like any normally set anchor when I pulled it up.

So what is the takeaway from all this? I don't really know

I'm not ready to conclude that an anchor which doesn't hold a full power pull, is really perfectly set. But it seems it is unrealistic to expect the anchor to set that well immediately. More soak time is probably in order in these bottoms. And lastly, probably, we need to be realistic that there are many places where the anchor is just never going to hold perfectly, and we should be careful where we decide to stay in strong weather.

Also, I'm going to continue experimenting with the Fortress in such places.