Photos of Anchors Setting

[estarzinger]

[QUOTE=noelex 77;1890322
Wind forces rise exponentially[/QUOTE]

To be picky this Morning . . . No, it is quadratic growth not exponential. Exponential is 2^x, while quadratic is x^2 = what wind force is, increases with the square of wind velocity (not the exponent of wind velocity).

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

We have moved to a new anchorage and the internet is very poor here. I still have a lot of photos to post from the last anchorage and when the internet can load these I will catch up at as soon as I can.




Many sailors would be surprised how poorly most anchors actually set most of the time. Wind forces rise exponentially and to hold the boat up to say 20-25 knots, the anchor needs very little grip.

When sailors announce "my anchor has never let me down" they mean "we have not dragged". If they could see how their anchor was working on the bottom, they would rate its performance much more realistically.

The majority of the time most designs of anchors will do their ultimate job and hold the boat stationary. It is therefore easy to falsely conclude that good and bad anchor designs must be working in a very similar way.

There is actually a vast difference in underwater performance between different models.

Yes, I once anchored thinking I was secure in about 15 knots and mild chop in an exposed area of coast at the Channel Islands. I went diving and thought I'd swing by and check the anchor. I was shocked to see the anchor was not set at all and the only thing holding the boat was a link of chain jammed in a rock. At least where I am (Channel Islands, Ca.) most folks anchor bow and stern and you can pull each anchor against each other. If one is dragging you'll be able to tell right away.

[hoppy]

I'm back in the water. Anchorage with a sandy bottom.

When I dropped Rocky, I could see that he sat upright. The water was about 6m where I dropped and I have about 35m of chain in the water. It was gusting up to 20 knots but to ensure it really dug in, I reversed at 2500rpm or perhaps even more.

As you can see, it set in not much more than it's own length

[hoppy]

When I arrived there were two other yachts already here. I swam upo to the nearest yacht to photo it's anchor.

It's I guess a bugel dropped by a production boat around 38 foot.

At first I thought it was doing well even though they used limited scope (you can see the whole chain lifting). From the marks I could see that they had been swinging around for a little while on that spot



Then I noticed the drag mark



I followed it and eventually found where it had started. It looks like they were set, then the wind swung around a little and I presume picked up a bit.


It was hard to estimate, but I would guess that they drifted at least 20-30 meters before the anchor dug in again.

This is the view of the drag mark from the original set

[JPA Cate]

Hey, hoppy,

Good pix, and they really tell the story.

Thank you.

Ann

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

To be picky this Morning . . . No, it is quadratic growth not exponential. Exponential is 2^x, while quadratic is x^2 = what wind force is, increases with the square of wind velocity (not the exponent of wind velocity).

Yes, sorry. You are completely correct. Brain freeze .

[noelex 77]

This is the Guardian again from post # 1713. The yacht stayed overnight, so there was an opportunity for more photos.

It is amazing to me that people are prepared to go to sleep on anchors looking like this.

In the morning the wind switched 180°. It was only very light still. The anchor had pivoted on the long stock. It was now facing the opposite direction, but still with a very high list and minimal bury of the flukes.

It had dragged back several feet towards the direction it had started:

[Fortress]

From the size of the flukes and the stock, this appears to be a very small Guardian anchor model.

Within this thread, I have seen images of much heavier steel anchors that penetrated only minimally into the sea bottom, and so is it the fault of the anchor design that it is not properly buried, or that of the owner who did not power down on the anchor, or use the recommended amount of scope?

Safe boating,
Brian

Fortress Anchors – The World's Best Anchors! – Videos

[micah719]

There is another possibility.....

Noelex's inner Drill Sergeant compels him to pull improperly set anchors out and make the lubber do it again. I can hear him now....

"I am Chief Anchoring Sergeant Noelex, your senior Drill Instructor. From now on you will post only when posted to, and the first and last words out of your filthy hawseholes will be Sir. Do you maggots understand that? If you mermaids leave my anchorage, if you survive hook training, you will be a cruiser, you will be a minister of the rode praying for a windshift. But until that day you are charterers, you are the lowest form of life on earth, you are not even daysailers; you are nothing but unorganised grabmooring pieces of amphibian cargo!

Because I am hard, you will not like me, but the more you hate me, the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair! There is no nautical bigotry here. I do not look down on cats, tris, monos, bruce's, rocnas, danforth's or mansons. Here, you are all equally worthless; and my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved raftup. Do you maggots understand that? etc..."

[hoppy]

This is my Vulcan at last nights anchorage. I dropped in 8m and did not dive until this morning. I decided to skip the weights and just take the gopro.

When I dropped it was blowing 30+. I put in the water about 55m of chain. When I got back to the cockpit I found I was now in 23m. I was a little worried about the sloping bottom, but when I reversed up with 2500rpm plus the 30 knots of wind I found we just stopped dead. The highest gust I saw was 43 knots and the Rocna held fast.

After midnight the wind died off and I went to sleep. I had the drift & depth alarms set and was woken when I had drifted up close to the anchor.

The anchor is very close to a quick drop off. I drifted back quickly during the windlass drop. I was probably a few seconds from missing the 8m part

Might have to consider a free drop when it's so windy and the bottom is not flat.

As you can see, it dug in nice and quickly

[hoppy]

Tonights anchorage...

The Vulcan dug in very quickly but as you can see, it did travel a bit under the surface. I think I gave it close to 3000rpm and it held eventually

[kas_1611]

Originally Posted by hoppy

As you can see, it dug in nice and quickly

Looks good from the comfort of my armchair Hoppy. Good to see you are finding the same results from the Vulcan as me

Keiron

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by kas_1611

Looks good from the comfort of my armchair Hoppy. Good to see you are finding the same results from the Vulcan as me



Keiron

We wouldn't know about the same results as you've been a bit slack with the photos 😜

I wish I had been diving and photographing when I still had the delta. Whilst it seemed to hold, I never saw how quickly it set.

This thread has been good for me as previously I never really reversed back so much, so perhaps it's luck I did not drag often


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[kas_1611]

Hoppy,

Sadly I have to agree on the photo front but as we dropped in 8 to 10m of water a few times this last trip I wasn't able to get down deep enough to capture photos as my limit is about 5m. But from what I could see with my little eye we are both getting very similar performance in terms of the speed of set and depth of penetration.

We have another month in September so I will do my best to capture some more of my Vulcan doing its disappearing trick

Keiron

[noelex 77]

A Rocna in 6m @ 4:1.

After all the poorly set anchors this Rocna is a welcome change. It was dropped in small sandy patch between some weed beds and it has set very nicely. The short setting distance took advantage of the limited sandy patch. There is a bit of heaping up, but that is nit picking, as importantly the entire fluke has dived well below the general level of the substrate.

Wouldn't you rather go to sleep on anchor looking like this?