[aa3jy]

Interesting results conducted by Boat US on popular anchors. See Oct. issue of 'Seaworthy' as the results where not surprising...

http://www.boatus.com/seaworthy/assets/pdf/anchor-test.pdf

 

[olddog60]

Given a soft mud test the results are not surprising. That's why I have two anchors.

 

[MarkofSeaLife]

As I dont live in that country... Do ya wanna spill the beanz?

 

[olddog60]

Not sure if links are ok. If not mods can take it down.

The Fine Art Of Anchoring Page 2 - Seaworthy Magazine - BoatUS

www.boatus.com/seaworthy/assets/pdf/anchor-test.pdf.

 

[Don L]

Based on the tests as an average I want to ony anchor on Day 4

But it was interesting how the old school anchor did pretty good against the new generation one.

 

[pdqaltair]

There was a long thread elsewhere. The area is known for layers of oyster shell and soft mud and is extremely variable.

My only take away is that when you are anchoring over a layered bottom with shells, there's no telling what you've got, even after you back down (you will feel a 500# set, but perhaps that is ALL you've got). I think it might be over-examining the data to say much about winners and losers.

Bigger is better and shock absorption helps, but moving is the only safe bet... if there is anything better nearby.

 

[RainDog]

Got to like these results if you make the Mantus. I would expect Fortress/Danforth to own a staight line pull test in mud, but if I was only looking at this chart, i would buy a Mantus.

 

[PCP]

Why a soft mud test alone? It is very common there? Not a bottom very usual in Europe: Most anchoring bottoms are sand, hard sand, normal mud, and sand with vegetation. As someone said, the best anchors on soft mud have not a very good performance on other bottoms.

 

[RainDog]

Nothing but soft mud around here. Same in the Chesapeake as I understand it.

 

[tempest]

Am I reading this correctly? This is a test of an anchor's ability to set itself?

They lower the anchor, paid out 200 ft. of scope, (without having set it) then started reeling 100 ft in, at 10 ft./minute.

I don't read this as a test of a properly set and scoped anchor's holding power

It's a test of re-setting in a straight line..

or am I reading this wrong?

 

[kwaltersmi]

Even with a soft mud bottom, I was bit surprised by the following statements:

"The "next-generation" anchors did not perform any better than the older designs, and there was some speculation as to whether those anchors were landing upside down and not righting themselves."

"What was most striking was the lack of consistency in the results for the same anchor."

 

[bobmcgov]

"What was most striking was the lack of consistency in the results for the same anchor."

Which indicates poor methodology, which means the experiment was useless. A good test would return consistent results for the same anchor in the same class of bottom; then you test in a range of bottoms, and observe consistent results in those ... and THEN you publish. You don't toss a few anchors overboard in one notoriously variable soil type, speculate how well they landed, gather an utterly useless scatter of data points, and call it a scientific test. The lack of design and control in some of these 'tests' or 'comparisons' is frustrating. Because no clear patterns emerge, the authors sum up their article with a big shrug -- and we, the end user, are left no better informed than before we read the review.

All we learn is that, in thin shelley mud, it's hard to be certain any anchor design will hold. No %#[email protected], Sherlock. How about you do your next test on a concrete boat ramp -- let us know which anchor type performs best on that.

 

[JonEisberg]

Which indicates poor methodology, which means the experiment was useless. A good test would return consistent results for the same anchor in the same class of bottom; then you test in a range of bottoms, and observe consistent results in those ... and THEN you publish. You don't toss a few anchors overboard in one notoriously variable soil type, speculate how well they landed, gather an utterly useless scatter of data points, and call it a scientific test. The lack of design and control in some of these 'tests' or 'comparisons' is frustrating. Because no clear patterns emerge, the authors sum up their article with a big shrug -- and we, the end user, are left no better informed than before we read the review.

All we learn is that, in thin shelley mud, it's hard to be certain any anchor design will hold. No %#[email protected], Sherlock. How about you do your next test on a concrete boat ramp -- let us know which anchor type performs best on that.

Exactly… the supposed methodology of this one IS a bit of a head-scratcher…

Hmmm, let's see… A Boat/US anchor test, "Sponsored by Fortress Anchors", just happens to be conducted in the soft mud of the Chesapeake, eh? Gee, what a shocker, talk about a home field advantage…

In my opinion, any anchor test performed in water not clear enough to be able to actually observe the behavior of the anchor - either from the surface, or by a diver with a video camera - certainly has the potential to be pretty worthless… One can learn a great deal more by tooling around an anchorage like Elizabeth Harbor, Exumas, in a dinghy, looking at various anchors with a look bucket… Especially, after the passage of a front, when all the boats have swung close to 180 degrees on their hooks, and the handwriting is still visible in the sand...

Of course, "clear water" and "muddy bottom" rarely go hand in hand Still, one has to be very skeptical about the tester's ability to drag everything from a Fortress, to a CQR, through the bottom at the steady rate of 10 ft/minute, as claimed…

That had to be one seriously SOFT mud bottom, for certain…. Hell, I rode out Hurricane Arthur this summer in what I consider to be a pretty soft bottom in Lake Tashmoo, and while my Manson Supreme dragged slightly over the course of about 4 hours, it was nowhere remotely close to the distance they claimed to have dragged all these hooks…

 

[Don L]

To me I would hold anchor test results a lot higher if they were done in a test tank so that we knew every anchor was tested in the bottom conditions. Different results from the same anchor on different days just suggests "luck" is as important as the anchor.

 

[RainDog]

Hmmm, let's see… A Boat/US anchor test, "Sponsored by Fortress Anchors", just happens to be conducted in the soft mud of the Chesapeake, eh? Gee, what a shocker, talk about a home field advantage…

Despite that, Fortress does not come out looking too good. Terrible actually.

 

[travlin-easy]

Having anchored in Chesapeake Bay thousands of times, I've always had the best holding with my Danforth, not my CQR. It holds fast, even after multiple tide changes. And yes, the mud here is very soft. However, the Danforth held very well in the sandy bottom locations down south as well.

Cheers,

Gary

 

[killarney_sailor]

If you can get a Danforth well into a soft bottom it will hold well because it has a lot of fluke area. We have a 35H that has worked well on the rare occasions we have used it. There are other questions though about how easy it is to get to bury and what happens with a major wind shift.

 

[PCP]

Which indicates poor methodology, which means the experiment was useless...:

Yes. On an anchor test there are two fundamental things to test: Easiness to set the anchor and holding power on different bottoms.

For easiness to set you count the number of times you need to set the anchor and only then, with the anchor set, you measure the holding power. On those test they pull the anchors, being set or not and some just never set and just drag along, for instance, that happened several times with the Rocna.

Useless as you say

 

[TropicCat]

Talking anchors on here is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Few won't defend the anchor they already own regardless of published data.

Disclaimer.... I own 3 Fortress anchors, and they have never failed to set ..or hold ... in mud or soft sand. If my cruising area had dense sea grass, I'd own another brand of anchor. The Fortress is great... at what it's good at.

 

[Omatako]

I admit up front to be coming from the dark side - I use a CQR mostly.

But I find it astonishing that any test in any bottom would show a Fortress FX (basically a smartass Danforth) and a 21lb unit at that, outperforms a Manson Supreme, a Rocna and a Mantus all of twice the weight by up to 250%.

Best results (approx) from each graph:

Mantus @ 44lbs = 850lb pull
Rocna @ 44lbs = 750lb pull
Manson @ 44lbs = 810lb pull

Fortress FX35 @ 21lbs = 2050lb pull and rising!

Really???

I gotta buy me one of those. Yeah, right!

I don't suppose there could be rock under the mud? Nah, you could never hook the same rock twice.

If the test results were any good it would be interesting to see the "best performance" of each anchor shown on the same graph.