New Generation Anchor

[ebb]

Can't drive car without brakes. Can't sail boat around without anchors.
You'll probably never have a better opportunity to see what your anchor,
or one you heard about, does under water when you're not looking.

Turns out Steve Goodwin really is one hellofa skipper. SV PANOPE, from which
assume he creates his "1500 videos", is a 15,000 lb "If I visualize my boat without a
mast, I see a trawler". His 45' other half. The gaff sloop has a handcrafted set of
cruising sails by Carol Hasse & Co.

There are many videos by Steve on anchors and anchoring. Just ran into 'Anchor
Setting Test Commentary Video #19 of an ongoing anchoring series' that takes place
on Port Townsend Bay up in Washington. (Ebb landed too quick, doesn't explore
enough, gets factoids wrong, excuse me please.) This video introduces us to all the
old, no longer fashionable, traditional hooks, misfits, hassles, plain wrongs -- with
Supreme and Spade for good measure. And good reason, as you will discover.

Goodwin's videos seem somewhat progressive. #56 and 63 are where I started and
where my focus on Supreme finally ends. Early video, forget #, compares Supreme
with Spade, with inconclusive visual comparison that Goodwin has to tell us in video
who came out first. We have to spend time, and so far get lucky in the draw for
anchors & comparisons. Haven't found a complete list of video titles or index, yet


Spent hours thinking modifications to my Supreme 25. Goodwin also, BUT he dives
in, actually does it. Must watch PANOPE video #67 -- where he cuts off the what
-everybody-really-hates rockslot, making the tip a little heavier! Grinds off winglets
on the speartip so the fluke tip touches ground.. Welds on a sharp little keel, grinds it
off. Tries a slight turned up edge on the fluke (beginning to wonder here, myself.)
Welds large wing tips on top of the fluke at the roll bar, he thinks they'll help force
the tip down... with each modification he heads back to the boat with great
expectation, and throws the suffering anchor back in ...Initial set always perfect,
resets are all "failures".
Grinds the "ears" back off.

Goodness Gracious, what's the matter with this !@#$%^&! anchor? Nothing, not even
mutilation gets it to wake up! (I've been alone out here waking up on the far reaches
of pa-dot-org, forever grinding-on about these stupid anchors in this digital wasteland)
... so here's this special OP from Port Townscend, he's in his shop, probably acuppa
coffee ... and he looks over at the Sarcas he's collected, squints his eyes... and has,
not really all of a sudden, what amounts to: an epiphany, a new understanding...

He looks at the slots in the fluke of Rex Francis' Super Sarca (cage anchor, I call it)
and then eyeballs the Excel (which looks like a Delta from the Bonneville Salt Flats,
but its total opposite). Excel also has fluke VENTS, and we know from Goodwin tests,
these two distinct cousins, they set and reset like concrete.
So... dragging what remains of poor Supreme over to the drill press:

'NO WAY IS THIS GOING TO WORK'
he drills eighteen 1/2", rather small, holes, in 4 neat rows thru the fluke on
either side of the shank/fluke connect -- dumps it in at his favorite test site,
instant set, gets his big old trawler (it's really sumtin else!!) doing the 180s

-- and BEHOLD... the radically mortified, chopped and channeled MOPREME,
pirouettes seamlessly into a series of 10 perfect resets.
(It's alive! It's alive!! It's Alive!!!)


Goodwin's perceptive holey improv works perfect.
When he hauls it up, the only mud is on the extra narrow tip with no openings. Altho
the holes seem tiny, obligatory resets are so enthusiastic he struggles to retrieve the
anchor out of the bottom -- all 10 resets.

{Should you be inspired to ventilate your rollie anchor, re-hotdipping can weaken the
steel. Amazing mcu coating/paint Aluthane will work just as well, imco. But once
opened you may return to find a hockey puck in the can.)


Visuals, before the venting, show hard-packed mud stuck on the upright shank/fluke
connect. This is where the holes in the fluke go. Goodwin shows us the mystery slots
in the Sarca anchors.
What the holes do is solve the very problem Goodwin's tests reveal that haunts the
unholey Crockna-og-Supreme duo. And why both very different SuperSarca and
Excel* anchors are successful at what anchors are supposed to do. At what the
Crockna-og-Supreme's collectively do not do.

Looking back, they weren't fully developt by testing before being rushed to market.
AND after all this time both manufacturers have to lie about these rascals -- instead
of getting them corrected and dependable. WHY? BECAUSE IT'S A SAFETY ISSUE.

Rotna & Supreme should be sold with warning stickers that anchored boats will drag.
OR remove them from sale.

If these people don't show up, don't buy their products.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Excel Video #60 does what it's supposed to, but takes some petting.

Video # 58 Mantus, Excel, Supreme - together in the doctor's office.
'MOPREME'. Documents initial surgeries on Supreme with mixed reset resistance.

#68, it's a windy day -- he drops his Primary, as always, another test... but suddenly
we're sailing rail under with a double reefed gaff main and storm jib
-- it's a beautiful day.

************************************************** *****************
Six-pac thread: SailNet, Re: Another "Next Generation" anchor enters the market
291 posts 2013-14. Subject Mantus. As you probably know these anchor forums
never stay on subject -- and sometimes certain anchor makers take heat and vitriol.
We're pretty cool. But the Brits will have the weasels swinging from the yards...



************************************************** *****************
Guess I ought to say, never met or spoke with Goodwin. Probably should not have
taken all the liberties. Forgive me, anchors are serious business, a few grins and
grimaces can't be helped.

__________________________________________________ ________
DONE WITH IT
Briefly scrolled up this page here, a chapter of 10,000 words -- it's all difficult to read
-- especially in an age of tweets. Been my education. Lack of experience has caught
me wrong sometimes. 'We' still search for that special all purpose anchor, that
doesn't exist -- and anchor designers seem incapable of creating. In the quarter
century of new generation anchors, not one stands out as the champ...

Except one:
the oldest and most copied anchor concept of nearly all later new-gen designers
-- still appeals to knowledgeable and loyal cruisers: the droit d'ainesse ace:
Poiraud Spade..
Impressive and compleat uk site: http://www.spade-anchor.co.uk/

Another, promising but muddled with exposed hexhead bolts, the unique Mantus.
Others, conceptually flawed, perhaps dangerous, well distributed by indifferent
companies.
Forums seem to suggest a significant number of owners have no idea how anchors
behave on the sea floor. Plenty information, little curiosity.
(As I've been saying, designers, some designers, also prove they have no in depth
idea what anchors do.)
An anchor that doesn't know what it is doing can take your life.

Mind set that informs and sells anchors to the public is the same as sells deodorant.
We're in the armpit of constant anchor stink.
That's why the Goodwin/PANOPE videos are so valuable.

Choosing a cruise anchor is a dangerous game. Take Care. Stay vigilant and angry.
Sure is a lot of fun.
Adios, Ebb
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"you know when you put a stick in water it looks bent? That's why I never take baths."
echuta 13, The Amp Garage