Mantus Anchor "Resetting"

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Factor

I have experienced break ou with Supreme and Rocna.

Anchors can, and unfortunately do, "break out and drag".

Anchors when rotating are more vulnerable to dragging than at other times. This is especially true of anchors that rotate poorly (for example developing a very high list).

However, like any dragging, this is not normal. There is a belief among sailors that that the "break out, rotate, drag, and then (hopefully) grab the bottom again" method of resetting is common. It is not common, safe, or normal.

There should be more emphasis placed on anchors that rotate well (if you wish to use the anchor as a bower anchor). Unfortunately, so far, I have only been able to show the excellent results of the Mantus anchor when rotating. I hope to be able to provide some pictures of other designs of anchors attempting to do the same thing and I think people will be surprised and shocked at the differences that are easily seen.

Usually the wind conditions are not enough to break out anchors that rotate poorly, but by seeing how anchors are behaving underwater, I hope people can gain some understanding of how different models perform this important task.

Like any other aspect of anchor performance, different models vary from excellent to poor and I think for our main bower anchor we should try and choose an anchor that is ranked highly in its stability and performance when adapting to a new direction of pull.

[Factor]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

....

Usually the wind conditions are not enough to break out anchors that rotate poorly, but by seeing how anchors are behaving underwater, I hope people can gain some understanding of how different models perform this important task.

Like any other aspect of anchor performance, different models vary from excellent to poor and I think for our main bower anchor we should try and choose an anchor that is ranked highly in its stability and performance when adapting to a new direction of pull.

The problem I have with your conclusions is that they are drawn from an insufficient data set. You cannot say that the Mantus will always or even the majority of the time rotate without breaking out. You CAN say that in that bottom type it shuffles rather than breaking out. That is all.

[DoubleWhisky]

Originally Posted by Factor

I think it is relatively clear that the sandy desert bottom you are in is a contributor to shuffling rather than resetting, as I have experienced break out with Supreme and Rocna.

Originally Posted by Factor

The problem I have with your conclusions is that they are drawn from an insufficient data set. You cannot say that the Mantus will always or even the majority of the time rotate without breaking out. You CAN say that in that bottom type it shuffles rather than breaking out. That is all.

Hi Factor

I hope for more empirical data through the sailing season, and it looks Noelex is working quite hard (and may be his Wife even harder) to produce such a data.

For the moment their testing results are of course only preliminary, so I'm reading Noelex' comments as a general remarks rather, than final conclusions.
It will be difficult for us to assess the different kinds of Med bottom just from the photos, so it may be useful to have Noelex commenting a bit more about this. The problem with Eastern Med bottom is You can not tell much about it just by looking at it. The look at the patch made by anchor tells some more by average.
The photo can not tell us, how watery the "sand" is (I'm writing "sand" not just sand, because the proper sand is quite rare thing in Eastern Med), how big are particles, what is the material, how deep the underlayer is and of what kind, are the weeds fixed well on the bottom or floating free at almost any touch and so on, so on...
If Noelex will venture further North, he will come to the muddy bottoms, proper sandy bottoms, thick weeds in places or even a seagrass. I do actually think he is now close to one bay with high seagrass, but the visibility in this bay is extremely poor underwater, so it does not make a lot of sense to make a test there.
So all we can do now is sit, wait, look at the photos, may be make some suggestions.
For any real conclusion regarding mantus performance we need to wait several months, I suppose.

Back to the shuffling - with Rocna I experienced only three 360 deg. rotations of wind - one in quite hard "sand", one in rather watery mud and one in rather thick mud-alike bottom, but with substantial layer of weed.
At the last case it took quite long for anchor to set well. On all three occasions it held well. Not mauch data of course - as I wrote in one of these Mantus related threads I was rather Med moored than anchored out for some time.
My previous Delta tended to break out almost every time when wind shift exceeded something between 90 and 120 degrees, and reset amost never.
Up to my observations Kobra (on buddy boat) was breaking out rather rarely.
I think in some conditions/bottoms almost every anchor will break up, but some are better keeping in the veering wind than others. What will be the conclusion for Mantus? We probably will know - may be as soon as October