New Anchor Developments

[pje56]

Originally Posted by StuM

Are you having a Lark?

No, I gave up smoking 40 years ago.

[Sybarite]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

Many anchor designs use a weighted tip. This creates bulk, which can induce problems with penetration in difficult substrates such as weed. While anchors such as CQR use steel ballast, the better anchors such as Spade use lead. This has a much higher density, which makes a significant difference in water.

Recently depleted uranium has become available at relatively low cost. It is 1.7 times as dense as lead. The waste products of nuclear reactors has to go somewhere and rather than treating this as a waste product, its high density is ideal for anchors.

There is of course the obvious concern of radiation, but radiation sickness is only seen above a threshold radiation dose and most owners do not spend much time at the bow, which limits the concern. One anchor manufacturer suggested the use of depleted uranium would discourage other boat owners from anchoring too close, an obvious benefit.

Eric Tabarly was once disqualified in a RTW race for having a uranium keel.

[Tillsbury]

It would be handy not to have to remember the anchor light.

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by Lepke

I think it would be difficult to sell a product that radiated, no matter how little..

You might want to check out your granite countertops.

[Olddan1943]

I guess I will start a baby sitting service for irradiant anchors.
Just drop them in an anchor farm and all your chain. Put a buoy on the end of the chain so you can retrieve them when you leave the harbor. LOL

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

You might want to check out your granite countertops.

Waste of time, Don... they don't wanna know stuff, just continue to promulgate old fears and superstitions.

Jim

[ggray]

Originally Posted by HankOnthewater

Noelex and Jim seem to know lots but I would have thought that depleted uranium prime use would be for keel ballast (eh, monohulls only). I know next to nothing so I ask my friend/foe Google:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

After reading all that I think gold might be a better option. Many many years ago I read a book: "the golden keel". At least in fiction, it has been done before.

Platinum keels, of course!

Somewhere I read of an America's Cup designer ~100 years ago who said that he would insist on a platinum keel, but would tolerate a thin layer of gold on top for economy's sake.

[Olddan1943]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Waste of time, Don... they don't wanna know stuff, just continue to promulgate old fears and superstitions.

Jim

LOL, for some reason I doubt granite counter are outlawed in Calif.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

You might want to check out your granite countertops.

Or the bananas sitting on the countertop

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Olddan1943

LOL, for some reason I doubt granite counter are outlawed in Calif.

You can have them provided you post sufficient warning and health hazard signage??

[Matt Johnson]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

And FWIW, depleted Uranium is in common use as counterweights in many commercial jets, and has been for decades.

Ha! I read about depleted Uranium used in elevator weights.... Every time I went into a highrise, it made me think of that. I didn't realize the elevators I read about were airplane tail assemblies

Matt

[CaptTom]

It’s not only waste, but nuclear waste.
It’s like a politician’s wet dream.

- Goshute Native American Leon Bear, interviewed by NPR, 10/2005.

[Olddan1943]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

- Goshute Native American Leon Bear, interviewed by NPR, 10/2005.

Oh yea. It's Nixon's fault and mot recently Trump's fault.

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Olddan1943

Oh yea. It's Nixon's fault and mot recently Trump's fault.

For the record, that quote was a swipe at the left (anti-nuke) crowd...

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

Many anchor designs use a weighted tip. This creates bulk, which can induce problems with penetration in difficult substrates such as weed. While anchors such as CQR use steel ballast, the better anchors such as Spade use lead. This has a much higher density, which makes a significant difference in water.

Recently depleted uranium has become available at relatively low cost. It is 1.7 times as dense as lead. The waste products of nuclear reactors has to go somewhere and rather than treating this as a waste product, its high density is ideal for anchors.

There is of course the obvious concern of radiation, but radiation sickness is only seen above a threshold radiation dose and most owners do not spend much time at the bow, which limits the concern. One anchor manufacturer suggested the use of depleted uranium would discourage other boat owners from anchoring too close, an obvious benefit.

We talked about this a couple of years ago.

I think tungsten is a much better choice than depleted uranium. The less pure common variety is cheaper than DU, is denser, and is much harder. You could make a sharp tip for an anchor out of it which ought to dramatically limprove penetration as well as balance.

I don't know why no one does it. You could really make a super anchor like this.

Another aspect of this is the density of the whole anchor, not only vs. water, but vs. the seabed.

A lead keel is much better than an iron one, and the difference is greater than just the simple difference in density, because it's not density by itself -- weight in air or in a vacuum -- but weight in water which creates righting moment.

But the same is true in the seabed, and here it's even more important, because the seabed is denser than water. So a 1.7x difference to lead is more like 2x (off the top of my head) in water, and the difference will be even greater in a denser medium like seabed.

These relationships look like this: