How do you deploy a Supermax in 10-15 ft of water ? Actually, I sail in Lake Ontario, lots of mud and weeds, and can't always hold on first try. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Bryan Although Andy Peabody disagrees, myself and others, who use the SuperMax all seem to agree. They have difficulty setting in vegetation, but the setting to use, according to Andy is for the type of bottom that the weeds are growing in. My suspicions are that his experiments in weeds is with a much bigger and heavier anchor than what we use, but I've never asked him about this. Jill and I don't use the Max in weeds, we simply throw out our Luke anchor, which is a 3-piece, take-apart, fisherman anchor. We wouldn't leave home without it. I suppose that if we tried, we could get our Max to set in mud, but then our concern would be "what if it tripped, would it reset"? Nah, we'd rather just use our Luke. For mud, there are two techniques that I am aware of, one you mentioned. Soaking, or drop and wait- deploy the anchor, then wait 20-30 minutes, then set it. If it doesn't set, wait some more, then try again. The other is "pull and pause"- deploy the anchor, then tug on it gently. Then decrease rpm and pause before resuming, continuing in this pull and pause, increasing rpm with each pull, always being sensitive to any indication that the anchor is releasing. If the anchor releases, start over. Rudy and Jill Solomons, MD Briney Bug 34' Sail-assisted trawler 850-832-7748

There are only a few anchors that do set well in weeds, when you get right down to it, and even then a special technique is required. The heavier the weeds, the more "advanced" techniques are necessary to get an anchor to set well. Anchoring in sand, gravel and mud is relatively easy compared to a bottom of any kind with weeds. Allow an appropriate scope, string the rode back, let it sit for a couple of minutes, then back down (we back at 1100-1200 rpm, about 3-4 MPH in reverse if moving freely); repeat as necessary. We learned the hard way when cruising the Florida Keys in 2004 that weeds on the bottom prevents even the SuperMax from getting a good edge. The technique that is required is to string out the rode like you should (don't pile everything on top of the anchor) and then let it set - sit, sit, sit, sit some more, then back down a little, then sit, sit some more, back slowly, repeat, repeat. It might take 30 minutes or more for the anchor to work its way through the weeds and into the bottom. In the meantime, if you're anchoring in a current or with gusting wind, you might need to leave the engine in gear to maintain slack on the rode. Only place we've had a problem recently was in the Rideau Waterway in Canada where there's a thin layer of sediment on top of granite (the Canadian Shield) in most of the anchorages. There, we searched for water less than 15 feet deep with lots of weeds (they grow where sunlight can penetrate to the bottom), let out at least 10:1 scope (or more), and hope the weeds wrapped around the anchor rode (chain in our case) would hold if a wind of any strength came up. The anchor can dig into the silt, but the silt will just allow it to slide along the granite. We used that technique to ride out the remnants of a hurricane in Lake Champlain 2011 when we anchored in a fairly well protected bay in six feet of water with weeds almost reaching the surface with 200 feet of scope! We had taken off the bimini top in order to reduce windage, lowered the mast, removed everything that was possibly moveable from the deck, etc. The weeds wrapped around our chain like crazy and held us through 65 MPH winds for a couple of hours while the wind clocked 90 degrees and the storm passed through. Took us a couple of hours the next day to get the weeds off the chain! <><><><><><><><><><><><>Mozilla Thunderbird<><><><><><><><><><> Bob McLeran and Judy Young Manatee Cove Marina MV Sanderling Patrick Air Force Base DeFever 41 Trawler Melbourne, Florida Blog: http://mvsanderling.net/Blog Web: http://cruising.mvsanderling.net/ On 8/13/2014 7:54 AM, Rudy and Jill via Trawlers-and-Trawlering wrote: > How do you deploy a Supermax in 10-15 ft of water ? Actually, I sail > in Lake Ontario, lots of mud and weeds, and can't always hold on > first try. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Hi Bryan > > Although Andy Peabody disagrees, myself and others, who use the > SuperMax all seem to agree. They have difficulty setting in > vegetation, but the setting to use, according to Andy is for the type > of bottom that the weeds are growing in.