Our family took advantage of a lovely Sunday with sunshine to jump aboard Aeolus and head over to our nearby park island. Blake Island is a State Park and the only whole island park anywhere near Seattle. It isn't very wild, or especially interesting, but it's here, and has some nice urban views from the shoreline.
 |
| Elliott putting his back into it! Anchored at Blake Island. |
Weather here has turned cold and clear, and in Seattle we will always take this combination as a break from cold and raining. So off we went to Blake and enjoyed a lively game of family frisbee and walked a few miles on the island trails.
Perhaps the most exciting news for this blog is that we got to try out our new Mantus anchor for the first time. We anchored in about 25 feet of water on a little shelf off the island and I let out 75 feet of chain. When we pulled back on the anchor to set it, we came to a definite stop. We then let ourselves sag forward a bit, and then I pulled back again and once more we came to a sudden halt. Well, I thought, that sure seems like a well dug in anchor!
 |
| Sand is evidence of it digging in! |
When we were ready to leave we came back and Elliott helped as he does controlling the windlass from inside the pilothouse while I was on the bow handling the anchor. When we pulled up to about 1:1 the windlass actually bogged down a bit and had a moment of struggle to free the Mantus from the seabed. Let me tell you something, that never happened with our CQR. And our windlass is a 1000W Lofrans Tigres. A really beautiful beast.
So the Mantus set right away into a mud/sand bottom, held the boat firm when tugged back, and then was a bit hard to pull out with our windlass until we were really 1:1. I would say that is great news for this anchor and I am excited about giving some more work in the months ahead.
3 comments:
Hi Guys, I love following this blog, and have been doing so for about 4 years when I was seaching for a boat, not just a sail boat, but a pilothouse boat. We have owned our 1987 Gulf since Mar 2010, and loving it. My question is Do you think a 25lb Mantus might be large enough? with all chain. I know you have remove some of your chain and add line.
If you
Hi Milo,
Your message is incomplete, but I will respond to what you wrote. Glad to hear you find this blog valuable,and especially so as a fellow Gulf owner.
Where are you located and what is her name?
If you review the Mantus website for size recommendations, it is clear that the 35lb is recommended. This is in keeping with the Rocna sizing too. Whether a 25lb would be enough is determined by your circumstances, but in general, I would say no. Although these new gen anchors hold better than the older ones, I would not err on the side of too small myself.
Thanks Brian, the rest of the massage was going to be my email, We are located on the east coast, in the Northumberland strait, Shedaic New Brunswick, Canada.
We call her MILO.
I do agree it would be better to too much holding power then not enough.
thanks again for the fast reply.
My name is Mike Hicks.
Post a Comment