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.