Photos of Anchors Setting

[Yeti]

Originally Posted by Yeti

This is at Smugglers Cove, Santa Cruz Island in California.

Sent from my ALCATEL ONE TOUCH Fierce using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

This is another anchor at the same location. I believe this is a Delta of unknown size (guessing 20kg?). This was in 35-40' with s fairly short scope. As you can see there's movement happening as the shot was taken. I can't say I'm an expert but it doesn't seem like there was enough effort taken in the initial set which happened before I arrived. Fairly soon after the shot was taken the owner seemed to have noticed and was trying to work on it. The boat was a newer 41' Hunter.
This picture probably isn't the best but it was pretty much at the extreme range of visibility and my limited freedive ability. I have tried my best to "touch it up" and get something useful out of it.

Sent from my ALCATEL ONE TOUCH Fierce using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[noelex 77]

A new anchorage. 5m @ 3:1.

I made a couple of mistakes at this anchorage.

There was a large and very nice looking sand patch. Unfortunately, there were several other boats in the anchorage. To keep a reasonable distance from other boats meant dropping as close as possible to the edge of the sand.

The Mantus sets in a very short distance so it is much easier to hit just the spot you want. This can be invaluable when there are just small patches of good substrate. It takes practice and coordination with the person at the helm to hit a small target. In this case I did not do a good job.

I normally let the anchor free fall to the bottom, but the best technique if the position is important is to dangle the anchor just above the bottom. When the perfect spot is reached, the boat is put in reverse and the anchor is lowered to the bottom. If the anchor is a design that takes a long distance to set, you need to take account of this and drop the anchor well forward of the intended finishing place, but this is not necessary with a quick setting anchor (well maybe 1 m)

The most common problem is to misjudge the distance between the anchor and the bottom. If the anchor is long way from the seabed then by the time it hits, the boat has moved backwards. The windlass will only power down slowly. You can release the clutch and let the anchor free fall, but this makes it harder to see the anchor land.

Anyway I missed the preferred landing spot by a few metres and the anchor ended up in the transition between sand and weed. This was not ideal, however, it does allow you to clearly see the anchor set in a weed clump. Normally in weed the burial of the tip is hidden by the overlying weed

The Mantus set virtually straight away and has done a good job. You can see the tip has dug under the weed into the substrate below. With these sort of tough weed roots the fluke penetration is always less than in sand. Many anchors will only grip in the weed itself. To penetrate into the substrate, which the Mantus has done, is a very important distinction.

Keep in mind the junction between weed and sand is not an ideal substrate to judge anchor performance.










Oh, and dropping in the wrong spot was not my only mistake, but one mistake per post is enough, so you will have to wait to hear about the second error .

[Sun and Moon]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

Oh, and dropping in the wrong spot was not my only mistake, but one mistake per post is enough, so you will have to wait to hear about the second error .

Sounds like another contest in the making - we get to guess your other mistake, and when we do you have to post another fabulous mermaid picture!

I'll start - since you misjudged how far off the bottom the anchor was, maybe you misjudged the depth, too, and didn't have as much scope as you wanted.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Sun and Moon

I'll start - since you misjudged how far off the bottom the anchor was, maybe you misjudged the depth, too, and didn't have as much scope as you wanted.

This was way too shocking an error for anyone to guess .


Under sea power/data cables are common in this part of the world. Most Greek islands have several that connect the various islands.

They are well marked on the marine maps and usually there is a sign on shore as well. Many cruisers seem happy to anchor quite close to these cables, trusting the marked position is accurate. I prefer to avoid them altogether. If it occurs, damage to one of these cables is very expensive to repair.

The marine maps showed the bay we were anchoring in was free of such cables. The two adjacent bays had power cables shown. After anchoring it was therefore with some dismay that I noted a large sign proclaiming the bay contained such a cable. Unfortunately my attention was focused on judging the distance from other boats, rocks, and on examinining the seabed rather than looking for signs onshore. Lesson learned.

Having an anchor that sets quickly is a big help in avoiding hooking one of these cables. Any damage will done pulling up the anchor so the best policy with such a mistake is to dive and take a look before doing anything.

Our was anchor fortunately a good distance from the cable:







I have heard many horror stories from other cruisers about anchors hooking up cables so I have always given them a wide berth. Consequently, this is the first one I have seen. A few things that surprised me:

• I expected an expensive cable like this to be laid in a straight line between the islands. It actually snaked all over the place.
  
• in most spots the cable had sunk into the substrate very little. The sand around here has a hard layer, but I was surprised that after what I presume is several years, the cable was mostly just sitting on the surface.
  
• It was thinner than I imagined. About 10 cm (4 inches) in diameter.

We stayed anchored in the same location for several days. There did not seem any point in moving. I thought I could at least warn other boats, but while there were several other boats in the anchorage fortunately no one anchored close to the cable. There was also two super-yachts and one small merchant tanker anchored in deeper water, but directly in its likely path. The large anchors and powerful winches of these vessels could potentially damage this cable. I presume similar vessels anchor here frequently. How does the cable survive when it not marked on the maps?

It was reinforced with what looked like stainless steel wire so possibly there is little chance of damage from our sized anchors and the forced generated by our anchor winches, but this is only a guess.

Anyway, the experience has reinforced my belief to stay well clear of these cables and in future I will take a careful look onshore for signs.

[Kenomac]

Noelex,

That ain't nothin'.

Two weeks ago, I pulled up our anchor and noticed that it had some weed on it so I lowered it to maybe two feet below the water surface to allow my slow motoring to clean it off. I motored over to a friend's boat to say goodbye, but they were still asleep, so I unfurled the sails and continued on my way to the next anchorage. After an hour, I noticed that I'd left the anchor chain locker open, so I went froward to close it. Maybe an hour after that, I noticed that the bright yellow float attached to my anchor via a SS cable was not on deck... thinking I must have left it in the water by accident, I went forward to discover the anchor was still dragging along under the surface by two feet. Oops.

I'd sailed for over two hours with the anchor dragging along in the water. Luckily, no harm done.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Sun and Moon

Sounds like another contest in the making - we get to guess your other mistake, and when we do you have to post another fabulous mermaid picture!

OK, here you go .

This was a large Fisherman's anchor lying in the bay that the locals were using as a mooring. It looks like it originally had a wooden stock that had rotted away, so I presume the anchor was quite old. Without the stock the anchor cannot work correctly, but this was functioning as a dead mooring weight rather than an anchor.

[Sun and Moon]

Great pictures! I bet you could do a really cool calendar, if anyone used such things anymore...

[noelex 77]

This is a Kobra.

The boat just dropped the anchor and piled the chain on top without moving backwards. No force has been put on the anchor and so this tells us nothing about the anchor's performance.

However, if you do drop an anchor in this manner (which I would not recommend) the photos show what you can expect. If the wind picks up suddenly, the loose pile of chain will allow the boat to move back a long way before any force is put on the unset anchor. The boat may develop some considerable momentum. This will impose a sudden force on a totally unset anchor and it will start moving rapidly. A rapidly moving anchor struggles to dig in very well.

In most cases it will still set successfully, but not piling up the chain and using some reverse to set the anchor initially is not difficult.

Keen anchorholics will have noticed other problems. In truth, these details rarely cause trouble, but they can cause a very rapid unexpected drag and they are not difficult to get right.

• The swivel is bent.
• The swivel looks like a no name brand with probably no safe working load.
• There are no chain links between the swivel and the anchor to allow some articulation (which is probably why it bent).
• The shackles are not moused.
• One shackle pin looks like it is starting to back out.
• The rope around the shank might slightly inhibit the anchor burying.
• .............?

There is one more. So here is your quiz. Does anyone want to take a stab at remaining problem? It needs an eagle eye.

[Sun and Moon]

1) Stainless steel swivel and shackle and galvanized chain, leading to possible galvanic corrosion. It looks like the shackle has some corrosion on its pin.

2) Hard to tell, but maybe a stainless steel bolt holding the anchor flukes to the anchor shank. The corrosion here could be more problematic since this joint is bound somewhat tightly together.

[Jim Cate]

Interesting photos, Nolex, as usual.

I see what may be an incipient crack near the boss on the D shackle between the chain and the swivel (and one wonders why that is there in the first place!). Dunno if that is the mystery fault, though...

Interesting that the bend in the swivel jaw isn't in the plane that would be from it binding on the anchor shank. I wonder how that happened?

And re the s/s vs. galvo chain mentioned above: I get the opposite impression from the photos, for the condition of the chain near the s/s bits looks very similar to the remaining links. Seems that it refutes the claim that you must not use s/s with galvo chain...

Jim

[Kenomac]

The shackles haven't been secured with wire.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Sun and Moon

1) Stainless steel swivel and shackle and galvanized chain, leading to possible galvanic corrosion. It looks like the shackle has some corrosion on its pin.

2) Hard to tell, but maybe a stainless steel bolt holding the anchor flukes to the anchor shank. The corrosion here could be more problematic since this joint is bound somewhat tightly together.

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Interesting photos, Nolex, as usual.

I see what may be an incipient crack near the boss on the D shackle between the chain and the swivel (and one wonders why that is there in the first place!). Dunno if that is the mystery fault, though...

Interesting that the bend in the swivel jaw isn't in the plane that would be from it binding on the anchor shank. I wonder how that happened?

And re the s/s vs. galvo chain mentioned above: I get the opposite impression from the photos, for the condition of the chain near the s/s bits looks very similar to the remaining links. Seems that it refutes the claim that you must not use s/s with galvo chain...

Jim

Thanks for contributing to the "quiz". It is just a bit of fun, but I hope this gets people thinking about (and perhaps even inspecting) their own set up.

The shackle connecting the swivel to the chain does look like it has the start of some pitting in the worst possible place. Very well spotted.

These areas are subject to both chloride stress corrosion and inter granular corrosion. Last year we watched a stainless steel swivel fail underwater due to this very problem, while holding a boat (well, at least for a bit of the time). So these are real, if rare, issues.

I still think stainless steel can be used satisfactorily for these connections. Galvanic (dissimilar metal) corrosion is often mentioned, but this will attack the galvanised chain or anchor and given their large mass relative to the small amount of stainless, the rate is low.

However, especially if you do use stainless steel, inspect these parts very carefully for any pitting or cracking (a digital camera on macro can be a useful adjunct), particularly in high stress areas. I would also use name brand products for these critical applications.

So, very well spotted. This was something I had not noticed.

That still leaves one more fault. The quiz is still open .

Here is an enlargement showing the shackle and the area of pitting that has been noticed, but the fault I am thinking about is not visible in this photo:




This was the swivel my mermaid photographed opening underwater last year:

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

The shackles haven't been secured with wire.

I agree Ken. I think this is probably the worst fault, but I call this "mousing" so it was noted above.

[Wanderlust]

In photo #3 it looks like the second chain link has broken.

Hence your broken swivel photo from last year turns out to have been an unstated clue.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Wanderlust

In photo #3 it looks like the second chain link has broken.

Wow!

I certainly don't like the look of that weld. The right hand side has a notch in the edge and there is evidence of a crack along the top.

Very well picked up Steve.

Unfortunately, I don't have a better picture to really show what is going on.

It is still not the fault I was looking for so the quiz is still open.