Danforth vs Fortress vs WM Performance

[CSY Man]

E-mail sent.

Rocna or bust.

(must be a marketing blunder if a customer has to search high and low to find and purchase the product?)

[GMac]

CSY Man.

You have a 33 foot yacht.
You want to fit a 55 pound Rocna.
You run 5/16" HT chain.

Am I understanding this right?

Yeah, I agree with your post above. The Rocna lads should be doing a good deal just based on your effort to procure their product alone. No pressure Craig

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by shellback

I known of Fortress's reputation,

I've been roaming the web and simply want to see if there's any chart showing types of anchors best suited for different conditions. (what anchors are best for sand, what anchors are best for rocky bottoms, mud bottoms, clay bottoms etc).

My cruising grounds have a combination of sandy, clay bottoms and some areas rocky. Would rather not want to loose an anchor in those rocky areas.

BTW - I really enjoy this forum. The entire site is awesome, great bunch of people! Could easily see sharing drinks with these nice folks over sea stories!
Mark

Try theses....................._/)

http://www.ussailing.org/safety/Anchor/anchor_study.htm

http://www.johnsboatstuff.com/Articles/anchor.htm

http://www.dulhunty.com/dmp4.htm

[FrankZ]

Originally Posted by GMac

Yeah, I agree with your post above. The Rocna lads should be doing a good deal just based on your effort to procure their product alone. No pressure Craig

Maybe Rocna will be the first place to offer a discount to CF members.

(hint hint, nudge nudge)

[CSY Man]

You have a 33 foot yacht.
You want to fit a 55 pound Rocna.
You run 5/16" HT chain.

Am I understanding this right?

Ya, ya are understanding it right.
You think I will be dragging?

[FrankZ]

Originally Posted by CSY Man

Ya, ya are understanding it right.
You think I will be dragging?

Anything could happen, though it does sound like you are hedging the bet heavily in your favor, which is not a bad thing.

[CSY Man]

Anything could happen, though it does sound like you are hedging the bet heavily in your favor, which is not a bad thing.

Yeah, when I put an anchor down, I am serious and I want to sleep good.

The only time I had a problem with the present Delta 55 was when I had no windlass and anchored in mud...Made the chain real slippery to haul in by hand.
Had to use a bunch of papertowels to wrap around the chain for every foot I dragged in.
That was a long day and a big mess......

[GMac]

Originally Posted by CSY Man

Ya, ya are understanding it right.
You think I will be dragging?

I'd very much doubt you will ever move again and will be happy to hang off the back of you during any hurricane. That set-up will hold us both damn easily. I'm 32ft with a 22 off 1/4" (exposed coastal rigged) and happy as a pig in poo. Offshore rig is a 30 and 8mm.

You do realise how big a 55 is don't you? A lot bigger than a Delta 55. I humped those things around and man you will be very very seriously parked. I'd suggest you listen a bit more to Craig and go down a size, I'll still hang off the back of you even with that and be happy. Big is good but that's extremly massive.

[CSY Man]

You do realise how big a 55 is don't you? A lot bigger than a Delta 55.

No, never seen one up front.
Craig sent me the dimensions however....Will measure and compare with the Delta.

I'd suggest you listen a bit more to Craig and go down a size

Do you take responsibility for my boat's survival in the next hurricane?

Did not thinks so....

[CSY Man]

Just in case something is lost in the translation:

I am considering a 55 pound Rocna anchor, NOT A 55 KG Rocna.

55 pound (lbs) is the same as 25 KG

[GMac]

Yes I know it's that funny old measurement system . Sorry I didn't realise you only carried one anchor and you also anchor in hurricanes so often. (Tongue removed from cheek)

One big advantage of the new ones is you don't have to oversize so much anymore. If you 'want' a 55 that's fine but I very seriously doubt you 'need' it. Just seems a waste of money and boat performance to me.

[Alain d'HYLAS]

Originally Posted by CSY Man

I am considering a 55 pound Rocna anchor,

Feb0706

The other thing of note that happened during this time period was that we experienced our first "anchor dragging" incident. On Saturday (Feb 4) we had a strong frontal passage with winds 25 knots, gusting to 35 knots. That combined with pretty rough water conditions in the bay made things 'a bit dodgy', as our British/South African friends would say.

We were out in the cockpit as the storm really got going and noticed a neighboring boat moving at a rapid pace to the rear toward another boat.

The owners of the boat that was dragging anchor had gone ashore earlier in the day, and the boat that was getting ready to get hit only had the teenage son of the family that cruises on the boat aboard. I was getting ready to go help the boy 'defend' his boat and try to stop the other boat from dragging when I noticed that we were closer to our neighbor to the stern than we had been earlier......

We had dragged and were dragging.

We were dragging slowly vs. the other boat, which looked like someone was driving the boat swiftly in reverse. Dahleen and I started our motor and motored into the wind of the storm for about an hour and a half, until is subsided a little and we could re-anchor.

As I pulled the Rocna up to re-anchor, it was covered with a huge clump of mud/sand/grass, so rather than digging in, it was plowing along the grassy bottom. A grassy bottom is not the ideal holding ground to anchor in, but you play the cards you are dealt.

During the course of the storm, 5 boats around us all dragged and had to either put out a
second anchor or redeploy their primary anchor. We found a patch of sand to drop the
primary anchor in and also put out our secondary, a 33 lb. Bruce. I also increased our scope
to 9 to 1. I think this will work for all but the worst of storms.

[CSY Man]

Sorry I didn't realise you only carried one anchor and you also anchor in hurricanes so often. (Tongue removed from cheek)

Try not to anchor in hurricanes, but sometimes we have 4 per year around here.

One big advantage of the new ones is you don't have to oversize so much anymore. If you 'want' a 55 that's fine but I very seriously doubt you 'need' it. Just seems a waste of money and boat performance to me.

Okay, uh so what do I "need" in your opinion?

(No insurance this year due to all the hurricanes the past 3 years...Katrina, Wilma, etc.)

Waste of money?
Save $200.00 to get smaller anchor that may not have enough horsepower to keep ya off of the rocks?

Keep in mind that the anchor manufactors recommend a working anchor sized up to 30 knots wind.

Rocna mentiones 42 knots.

Nobody have ever recommended a certain size anchor for hurricanes..Nobody.
Ya sure ya are in a position to do just that?

As for carrying only one anchor on the boat?

Nah, got more than that, read some of my previous postings on this here thread.

Don't go West young man, go BIG....

[GMac]

G'day again CSY. There was an amount of sarcasium in my last post, poorly done by the looks as well sorry

I would have been very surprised if you said you did have only one anchor, you certianly don't appear to be that stupid.

What do you need for a hurricane? Luck and plenty of it. I doubt very much any boat could carry a hurricane proof system and still float. You could put a 200lber on and you still won't sleep. Hurricanes are one of those do your best and hope like hell events. If it goes real real bad any anchor won't help you really.

You have a good pile of good sized chain which is all good. You have great snubbers even though you never mentioned them, I just have the feeling you've thought that through as well. Just a 55lber is a bloody massive anchor for a 33ft yacht especially behind that chain. Dropping one size to a 44 will make next to no differance to the anchors performance. It is an area based anchor not weight based so the 44 is bugger all smaller than a 55 when talking said area. The upsize to downsizing is money in your pocket, better boat performance, ease of handling, won't look so out of place and a few other little things.

I've been through 50knts off on my 32fter on a 10 and the only concern I had was the rope hanging off the back, trying a new one which suddenly looked a bit small. There was a some concern the next morning when I tried to retrieve it, for a minite or so I thought I wasn't going to get it back. The puppy had dug, guessing a bit, 3-4 ft down during the blow. It took a few minites but I did manage to get it back but it was close. These Rocna dodackies work and work bloody well. When you get it you'll see what I mean, it is hard to explain on the interweb.

I just don't want you ending up with a monster that is a pain to use 98% of the time for the 2% when it's a bit of a crap shot anyway.

The wind recommendations are something to watch for but Peter (Rocna designer) is a long time distance cruiser who errs a lot to the overkill side anyway so that is reflected in the rocna sizing guide. If you have noticed they recently tweaked the guide down a bit but most still think it's on the bigger end of the scale. I'm shown to be a 15 but use a 10 and are seriously considering dropping to a 6. No I'm not going offshore on a 6 and would take slightly more notice of the weather. And I'm only on 7mm chain, 1/4" in your language

Get a 55 if you like but please check out the phyiscal size before you do, they are bloody big.

As for going West, bugger that I'll hit Australia

[cat man do]

I originaly sized up for a 60 lb plow for a 50 ft 8500 kg powercat [full displacement].

Even though I will go a Rocna or similar and Craig speced a 45lb for her, after having a smallish experience in Vanuatu with a cyclone recently, and feeling that you can't have enough gear, i'll stick with a 60lb Rocna or similar, and maybe another, and a **** pile of chain as well, and Kellet's maybe although weight belts will probably suffice.

You just can't have enough gear if you have the time to prepare , in my opinion, and origanaly I freaked out about the weight, but now i'll sacrifice some other "toy's" to make up for it.

Dave