Problem with new Manson anchor

[deniseO30]

Chesapeake City's anchorage is shallow! if your back near the little bridge there are pilings submerged. Hey, now you have a stern anchor! It will come in handy there! I make sure, real sure the my danforth is dug in well by gunning the engine in reverse a couple of times. Next time I get there I will have a stern anchor too!

[Openc]

I was once anchored in Boqueron, Puerto Rico. Beautiful bay with sandy beaches and palm trees all around. We were anchored there for about a week when we decided to take a trip into town. When we got back 3 hours later, Our boat was gone. We found it about 1/2 mile from where it was anchored all week. The harbor in Boqueron has a circular tide. The boat makes a complete 360 turn every 12 hours. Due to other boats in the vicinity, all on one rode, we did to. Luckily, friends of our on the boat Fia were down below having dinner and looked out their port hole to see Open Circuit dragging. John quickly got one of his spare anchors, hopped in his dingy and saved the day for us. It turned out that through a week of turning in circles, we had dragged over a 12'x12' tarp, which worked it's way up our chain rode and eventually broke our 35# CQR loose.

Stuff happens.

[Flybyknight]

I picked up a steel 5 gal. bucket which effectively eliminated
any holding power. Took 3 strong young bucks to retrieve.
Dick

[eherlihy]

There was a good discussion of an anchoring technique that may have helped reduce the possibility of the drag (also may have increased the possibility) here:tandem-line-anchor-setup

Both Giulietta (is Alex still around?) and Mr Smith (Rocna) contributed to the discussion

[sailingdog]

Giulietta no longer participates on Sailnet AFAIK.

[donradclife]

Chances are better than even that you picked up the junk after you started to drag, but your experience is another advertisement for backing down on your anchor to check its holding power.

How hard and when to back down is the subject of a pretty long article, and is a function of the expected winds, current wind, propeller type, and boat type. You can get a feel for the necessary rpm by motoring your boat backwards into a strong wind--see what it takes to hold station in 30 knots, for instance--on my boat it is surprisingly little--like 1000 rpm. As the anchor load is proportional to the square of the windspeed, if I back down at 1000 rpm in light winds, its the load equivalent of 30 knots. If its already blowing 20 knots, backing down at 1000 rpm is the load equivalent of 35 knots, while if its blowing 30, its about a 40 knot load. We typically back down at 1200 rpm, or 1500 if we know it is going to blow over 20 knots.

A common mistake is to back down while trying to set the anchor--just because it skips across the bottom when you are moving 3 or 4 knots astern does't mean that the holding is not good, and you are more likely to pick up debris. Let the boat drift back and stop, then wait a few minutes and try idle reverse, then gradually increase rpm. Keep a careful eye on the ranges available to you to make sure that you stop moving backwards. We also have one person on the bow with their foot on the anchor chain--you can feel the anchor bounce over rocky bottoms, and guage the tension in the chain.

[fendertweed]

Originally Posted by sailingdog

Giulietta no longer participates on Sailnet AFAIK.

wha'happened?...

[sailingdog]

Long story, but he's very active over on Anything Sailing Forums - Powered by vBulletin

Originally Posted by fendertweed

wha'happened?...