A Slow Rockfish Season

 I don't think I've ever seen so few boats out on opening day. Only one out of Deale, and I saw a lot of long faces. None out of Chesapeake Beach, or possibly I missed it. Very few private boats, no more than 1-2 visible within 10 miles, most of the time.  

The population is way off, as low as it was during the closure years in the early 80s. You can only keep one fish, 19-24 inches. No fun. I'm guessing no good fishing for 7-10 years. Really, I guess it's been 15 years since I rated the fishing as good. 

I'd hate to be in the charter business. I guess I need to take my trolling gear off the boat, and just sail and kayak. Oh well. Maybe the summer spot fishing will be good, but I'm not that into it.  Sounds like freshwater will be the thing. I'll be 65 in a few weeks, so the license just got cheaper. Time to get a lifetime freshwater licence, I think. Just $25.

 

 Not worth going out for Rockfish, not for a while, in my opinion. Let them recover.

 

 

Even More Anchor Testing

 The long version (over 40 pages) will, I believe, be in Practical Sailor.

 I built a 9-pound version, suitable for my F-24 MKI. Today I tested it in sand and mud, and it exceeded expectations. It easily held the same 500 pounds in the ooze/mud that 35- 45-pound anchors have in prior testing. It set every time, it reset every time, and came up pretty clean.

 It fills my need, replacing an Excel and Northill.

 

 Alloy Excel #1 on the left, 9-pound Chesapeake anchor on the right. All it cost was some welding rod, since I have a lot of scrap.

  

 Rolling in. In practice, it always lands right side up, just because of the balance. But I tipped it a few times, just to be sure.

Replacing the water tube.

 About 1/4-mile from the dock the motor began to overheat. I nursed it back to the dock, stopping occasionally for it to cool. I took the motor home, removed the lower unit to replace the impellor (it had been some years), ad found the water tube had brooken loose at the top. The brass dezinced and it snapped off, so no water to the motor. 

 A little head scratching and Googling later, I determined that the powerhead had to come off to replace it. 

  

It comes up into that notch on the right, held by a grommet I removed. the pee hole is visible lower right.

 It seems like everything has to come apart. Covers. Controls.Reconnecting the shift bar is the worst part. 

 Run like a top now. 

 

More Anchor Testing

 It finally got warm enough to spend a day on the water, in-and-out of a kayak, and generally getting wet.

My modular testing system provides for over 100 possible combinations, but thankfully, many were eliminated early on as dead-ends. The convex fore-aft and convex toe-to-heel flukes disappointed; they did not penetrate the firm base layer well. Small differences in angle matter, but testing can be confined to combinations that showed promise. The Claw, Guardian (pivoting fluke), and Mantus anchors were tested as known reference points, since we have tested these at the same locations before.

So which combination is showing the most promise in layered Chesapeake mud? 

• The Guardian is VERY strong (>200 pounds, probably 500 pounds but we stopped at 200 pounds) when it reaches the firm layer, but in mucky areas it set less than half the time and never reset.
• The Claw never achieved anything we could call a "set." typically holding was 15-25 pounds, or less.
• The Mantus did well when it reached the firm layer, which was about 75% of the time. Holding was typically 80-120 pounds. If it did not reach the firm layer, holding was 35-45 pounds. 
• The odd looking split toe, no-roll bar anchor to the right is the winner so far. It set over 90% of the time, and holding was 120 to >200 pounds when it did. Getting it out of the bottom was a chore.  When it didn't reach the firm layer, it still held more than any other combination.

Why? I'm guessing at these things, based on testing in other configurations:

• The high shank helped it get deeper, through the muck. The Mantus penetrated a little more reliably with this shank too.  No-roll-bar seems to be an asset in muck.
• The roll bar did have a small advantage resetting in sand.  Let's not throw the baby out with the bath--except for very deep muck, it is likely the superior design. 
• Sharp toe. The split reduces the angle of the point. The Knox anchor (also split toe) is sharpened to a chisel instead of a point, and that is what we tested first, and it did well, about the same as the Mantus. Then we welded on a point and performance increased dramatically. 
• Angle. The fluke angle is a few degrees greater than the Mantus. We tested the Mantus with a greater angle, but it did not penetrate as well. We  tested the split-toe with the same angle as the Mantus, and it did well, but when we increased the angle it did better. The exceptional penitrating properties of the slit toe better tolerate the steeper (stronger) angle.
• They all set like lightning and securely in sand. The hold is over 50x the anchor weight (except for the Claw). All reset reliably except for the Guardian. If sized for mud, sand is not a problem.  

 

There are many more fine points. There will be a long (series?) of article in Practical Sailor covering all of this, but that is the gist of it.  

 The next step is to make a full-size version and test that all over this summer.  

  

 

Soil Types

I'm often told the Cheaspeake mud is like clay, but it's not clay. Mostly, it's fine sand and silt, with 10-25% organic content. The samples I have examined have relatively few particles small enough to be considered "clay," the shapes are wrong, and the mud lacks plasticity (you can't form it, for example, roll a snake between your hands). Mostly, it is a high-organic sandy loam. The high organic load makes it sticky when wet.

The beach areas are in the fine to medium sand range, with low silt and organic levels, but considerably higher than ocean beaches. The sand particles are intermediate in angularity and sphericity, with typically better holding than mid-Atlantic ocean sand, and better holding than coral sand. The only bite is that the sand can be thin, over impenetrable mudstone (set your anchor HARD to find out).

 Locations vary, of course. 

 

 

Mud Buckets

 

The Excel always came up clean, and the Hybrid MKI  did better than the scoops most of the time ...

  

 

... But not always (The Mantus was cleaned off--they were about the same). The crown is lower than the Excel (120 degrees vs. 90 degrees), which may increase fouling. The edge flange is wider, which improves setting and penetration of layered soils, but increases fouling. I'm thinking the next trial may be closer to the Excel crown angle (maybe 100 degrees) and an intermediate flange width. Both have a similar toe downturn. 

 

 

 

 The Knox set and held well, but it always came up clogged. The wings are as bad as a roll bar, and it seems that the high shank merely creates more space for mud and trash to accumulate. The split toe certainly does not improve release.

 

 

Anchor Testing

rev. 3-17-2026

 But different this time.

 Since I have become a competent welder, I've decided to break anchor performance down, one component at a time. Yes, they are interrelated, but it's where you start. The idea was spawned by having a number of Mantus M1 Dinghy anchors left over from testing. They are modular, coming apart quickly for storage under the seat of your jet ski. But even larger anchors, of many brands, have transitioned to bolt-together constructions to reduce shipping costs.  

I've started testing:

• Multiple sizes, from 4" to 9" fluke length.
• High, medium, and low shanks (Delta vs. Bugel vs. Oden).
• Multiple roll bar and wing options. 
• Multiple fluke shapes, including curves side-to-side and front-to-back. 
• Multiple fluke angles.
• Multiple crown (the joint between the shank and fluke) positions. 
• Shaping (streamlining) of edges on flukes and shanks.
• Fluke point angles. Down-turned toes.
• Split toe flukes (like Fortress and Knox).
• Sand and typical Chesapeake layered mud.

 

A whole fleet, with more than 100 possible combinations. 3-17-2026

 

What have I learned so far? A few things. 

• The most important variable, by far, is the fluke angle. A few degrees steeper, and it doesn't set at all in firm bottoms. A few degrees less, and it sets easily but doesn't hold as much.  The usable range is probably as narrow as 24-32 degrees.
• Shank shape and height, attachment method, crown position, and fluke shape, within a surprisingly wide range, make very little difference, as long as the fluke angle is correct. Some room for optimization. Balance can matter with a roll bar, and is vital without.
•  Chesapeake mud is more complicated than I thought. In open areas, exposed to tides, the loose stuff is washed away, and the bottom is more uniform (unless it is slate washed free of all sediment). However, in the creeks, leaves and detritus from run-off lay down a compost layer every fall, resulting in a mushy even semi-liquid layer that is too light to consolidate. Then comes the underlying clay, which is covered with oyster shells from centuries ago back when the Chesapeake was perhaps the most productive oyster grounds in the world. The challenge is super soft mud, which won't hold beans, over a layer that can be hard to penetrate without the right anchor and technique. Traditional answers have been either a really, really big anchor, or to let the anchor "soak" for 20 minutes,  sinking down through the soft stuff, followed by careful setting into the underlayer, which may or may not work, depending on the anchor type and setting method details (it's not just drop and back down).

Time to make some more models! 

 

 

 

 

If the step is too far (icy decks become a problem this time of year and my knees are getting older) add a railing. A pull-in line also helps.

The railing is welded from 1 1/4-inch square tube. It is attached with lag bolts, and the top is reinforced with a 1 1/2-inch steel strap around the piling. The paint has a non-skid finish. About 2 hours of cutting and welding, followed by painting and installation. 

 

Why You Don't Inject Epoxy into a Wet Deck to Effect a Fake Fix

 I tried to explain this over and over, but the editors always wanted articles on short cuts to fixing a wet deck. Well, injecting epoxy into mush is not a way to fix anything. It's not going to bond, doing a proper repair is more difficult, and now you have all of these holes.

 

Looked at another way, this is why smearing the surface to be bonded with mud and then working in the rain is not a good way to work with epoxy. It's not OCD to get things clean and dry, it's just ... obvious.

Telltail Locations

 Add enough and your sails will look like something from a wind tunnel lab. Yes, you can do well through experience and looking at the shape of the cloth, but they do remove some of the guesswork from sail trim. I've been doing this for over 40 years and I still appreciate a full set.

 The main leach tell tales can suck around behind the sail intermittently at the top when trimmed for peak power. The jib telltails should never suck back. Jib stall is worse than main stall since it will reduce the flow over the main.

 The