Photos of Anchors Setting

[NornaBiron]

Our 45kg spade set at 4-1 slowly backing up until tight and then introducing full power astern for 30 seconds.

[noelex 77]

This Delta was dropped quite close to us. The anchor was obviously not gripping despite the gentle reverse. After traveling 30-40m backwards (without realising it), they ground to halt and pronounced the whole anchoring thing over. Thankfully the wind was very light and they did not drag further. The toe of the Delta was just scraping the sand. The drag mark extended off into the distance as far as I could see. The scope was only 3:1, but in 15m of water the Delta should have made an attempt to set.

Interestingly, the skipper was also diving on the anchor. See the second photo (I hope you did not think that second photo was my mermaid ). Can you imagine a worse looking anchor with barely any set and a 40m drag mark? Did they do anything? No one ever does.

Someone has told them they should snorkel and take a look at their anchor, but no one seems to understand what it should look like.

I hope this thread gives you an insight into what appearance is acceptable.





The skipper of the boat inspecting the anchor. Yep, its on the bottom. Must be OK then :

[kas_1611]

At least he did have a look at it :-)

We've seen 2 further examples of bad anchoring today where yachts have come into the bay, dropped their anchor while still motoring forward then slammed it into reverse. At least both dropped a good deal of chain and I will credit the first attempt with success as the chain went taut, they held it for several seconds then proceeded to swim over it.

However the second boat just stopped once they'd let out an indeterminate amount of chain while still slowly creeping forward. Just glad they are over the other side of the bay to us.

The mind truly boggles

Oh and for those that want to know our Delta is buried up to it's ears in the sand ;-)

Keiron

[motion30]

Geeze. How hard is it to properly set an anchor. Somebody should hand out pamphlets at the marinas

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by motion30

Geeze. How hard is it to properly set an anchor. Somebody should hand out pamphlets at the marinas

Just to depress you further:

In the area that I am at the moment probably 3/4 of the boats are private, rather than chartered. There are not many "Marina Queens". Many of the boats anchor overnight and those that don't are often still lying to their own anchor Med-moored to a quay wall.

Anchoring skills and equipment are well above average. I have seen a much lower standard of both in some sailing locations.

[noelex 77]

A large Med-moored power boat dropped this Ultra.
It was in the other anchorage so I did not see the drop. As is common with boats tied to shore, it was on a very long scope with perhaps 130m of chain out in only 7m of water.

The Ultra has done a very good job. It is level with only a small amount of the underside of the fluke exposed. There is little heaping up and it has set in not much more than a metre.

Note the ring of stones in the foreground in the second photo. If you look closely there is a small octopus in the middle. Obviously Ultra anchors are way too shiny to attract any self respecting cephalopod.

[noelex 77]

Another Med-moored boat, this time a large yacht, with the Delta dropped in almost the same spot as the Ultra above.

This is one of the better sets I have seen recently for a Delta. This anchor really appreciates a long scope. This anchor was set with perhaps 100m of chain in 7m of water.

The Delta has dug in with only a little heaping up which is unusual for this style of anchor, but note the typical very long furrow. On the plus side the drag mark shows a slow progressive increase in depth without any skips or jumps.

This furrow fine in clear sand like this, but is no good if there are rocks, weed or debris in the way, which there often is. This is especially true when this style of anchor is exposed to stronger wind. Then it will move back much further again from its initial set as it buries deeper. Owners are typically unaware of these movements.

Be careful with an anchor that does this. Even if it is reasonably well set, when stronger wind is forecast make sure there is is a long patch of good substrate in front of the anchor.

This problem is not usually revealed in traditional anchor tests because they need to select substrates with large uniform areas to get consistent results.

[Palarran]

Even with all your photo's of delta's, it is still hard for me to believe my old Delta was so poor at setting and holding. I definitely had problems with it dragging but attributed it to a seriously undersized anchor. The photo's you post don't show the anchor burying past its stock at all, which I know in the Caribbean mine did almost every time.

[monte]

Mine as well in the med. I think it's mainly from not setting it with enough force what we see in the photos. We would drop our 20kg delta and slowly increase force up to 2x2800rpm in reverse, then drop a waypoint at vessel and watch it closely for 2 minutes as well as the seabed if visible. I would never have been satisfied even with a slow drag, which happened two or three times in 2 years, so we reset it. Mostly it was fully dug into the substrate if I dived on it. Even a lunch stop we would at least apply some reverse for 30 seconds to dig it in.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Palarran

The photo's you post don't show the anchor burying past its stock at all, which I know in the Caribbean mine did almost every time.

Yes that is true. When I have seen the Delta in Australia with softer sand the Delta will bury completely reasonably often. It also almost always completely buries in mud.

Here the sand even when soft on the surface has a firm layer underneath and the Delta does not usually have the ability to penetrate this layer, but it does occasionally happen and I am sure I will get some photos of a Delta completely buried at some stage.

I have posted photos of every single anchor I have come across since the thread began, so you have seen all the Deltas that I have over the last 4 months.

[noelex 77]

This anchor was a bit confusing. It looked like a galvanised finish. The Ultra has never been made in anything other than stainless steel. The geometry and construction otherwise looked correct for an Ultra.

I suspect someone has sprayed the Ultra with zinc paint to disguise the expensive stainless steel finish and discourage theft. I have seen this done with the stainless steel Bugel. Maybe it was a copy (but it also had an Ultra swivel), maybe it has developed this patina with hard use. Perhaps I have stumbled upon the hush-hush galvanised prototype Ultra .

It was very hard to pick the drag mark. There was a faint mark that extended from the anchor a good 4m or more, but I think this was an old mark from another anchor as it extended off to the left of the photo in front of the anchor. This type of mark can also be caused by the chain if the anchor is dropped while still going forward. I think the actual drag was very short, fitting in with the theory that the anchor had been exposed to only a small force and was in the early stages of setting.

The set is not great at this stage with not a great deal of penetration, but if the anchor had not been exposed to much force this is understandable.
7m @ 4:1.

[a64pilot]

A couple of observations, you guys correct me if I'm out of order here, these are general observations and I'm intentionally leaving out brand names

1. Most seem to be lunch stops, where the anchor is just tossed overboard without concern as I assume they are staying aboard or close by and will be leaving soon, the need for a strongly set anchor just doesn't exist.
2. Scopes especially for the older types are way too shallow, now I've just gotten a new gen anchor myself and am struggling with accepting a 3 to 1 scope is enough with the new designs, but my anchor of choice used to always be the one you see most in the US or the plow that is most often seen and if I was staying overnight, I always put out 6 or 7 to 1. They work if set on a longer scope, but they are not short scope anchors
3. Now I have a new gen roll bar anchor and I've been only using a 4 or so to 1 scope, and you can tell when the chain draws tight as the bow is snatched around and once that happens, I slowly apply throttle to full, then slowly reduce throttle, it's never moved. With my old type anchors, often they would drag at full throttle and it seemed that if they drug, I could drag them all over the bay, they would never set once drug, only course of action was to pull it and re-anchor and try again

[monte]

Good points A64, it's also worth noting that deltas are the standard factory anchor for a large portion of the charter fleets such as lagoon, beneteau, jeaneau etc and are more likely to be poorly set or used for lunch stops between marinas. Other anchors, new gen are more likely to be serious cruisers or from charter yachts that don't come with an anchor as standard such as Fountaine Peugeot, but even then if it's for charter they're not likely to choose the more expensive option. Not taking away from noëlex's great pics, a picture speaks a thousand words but sometimes there's more to the conversation..

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I assume they are staying aboard or close by and will be leaving soon, the need for a strongly set anchor just doesn't exist.

My guesstimate is that about 60% -70% of the anchors have been on boats that stay overnight or longer and 30%-40% are stopping for a shorter time. It does vary a bit from anchorage to anchorage.

I counted back the last few pages of posts and 9 of the anchors were on boats with an overnight stay and 7 were on boats that did not stay overnight. So probably recently a bit lower than average have stayed overnight.

I will try and make a note on future posts. Many are posted the same day, but I will go back an add the information.

Originally Posted by a64pilot

2. Scopes especially for the older types are way too shallow, now I've just gotten a new gen anchor myself and am struggling with accepting a 3 to 1 scope

Some of the boats have used short scopes when it was not necessary, but in most of the anchorages I visit longer scopes are often not practical. Many of the bays get deeper very rapidly and anchoring further out often does not help.

[noelex 77]

This was a Delta dropped by a private boat (I think), which is staying overnight.
They are anchored only about 20m behind us.

The Delta was set with very little force. It has only dragged about two metres, but just the toe is dug in. They didn't set directly downwind and the anchor has rotated 45 degrees despite the light wind (less than 10 knots). Scope of 3:1 in 15m of water.

Note:the long wide drag mark next to the anchor which unrelated it has been caused by someone else's attempt to anchor.

The wind is only forecast to be a maximum of 14 knots overnight so hopefully they will still be there in the morning. There are some rocks only a couple of boat lengths behind them so I hope so.