AFTER 1 YEAR OF CRUISING
The debate over which anchor is best is like asking someone if they would prefer Catamaran vs Monohull or which boat is more suitable for bluewater cruising. Everyone you ask will have a different opinion and all of them probably have valid reasons to favor one anchor over another. However, for us, we wanted to replace what we felt was an older, subpar 45lb Lewmar Delta anchor that came with the boat with something that had some newer technology and proven results. The Delta anchors are probably the most common anchors that manufacturers put on new boats and it has always been a head-scratcher for me. Why would you want to trust such a high-value asset with such a mediocre anchor?
If you haven’t read our post about when we drug anchor you can read about it here. This was the motivation for an upgrade to our anchor and in our opinion having good ground tackle is also just as essential for ensuring an enjoyable cruising experience.
The Delta anchor is a plow-style anchor with its design and technology dating all the way back to the 1930s when the plow-style anchor was first invented. There are a few different plow-style anchors, including CQR style anchors, which are similar to the delta but the fluke swivels. The popularity of these anchors has been maintained by their reasonable performance and compatibility with most bow rollers, however, from our research, the new generation anchors were far superior.
The new generation anchors are more of a “scoop” plow style anchor with a roll bar either welded or bolted to the fluke of the anchor. Generally, the scoop style anchors have a much wider fluke that allows for more surface area to dig in when the anchor sets. The roll bar allows for the anchor to land on the sea bottom on the proper side, or even, flip over, quickly right itself and begin to dig back in.
These were just a few features that attracted us to these new generation anchors. In particular, the Mantus M1 anchor. This anchor has countless third party tests that show far superior holding power than the older plow anchors, as well as the other new generation anchors from manufacturers like Rocna or Manson supreme. In addition to the holding power, the Mantus anchor set much quicker in all the test videos. See an example below.
All of these were major selling points for us especially when you consider choosing an anchor for a catamaran. The loads that a catamaran can exert on an anchor and ground tackle can be 1.5 times that of your traditional monohull. So holding power and setting ability was high on our list of needs from an anchor.
The few drawbacks we saw with this anchor were the fitting on our bow roller set up and that the anchor was not all one piece. However, Mantus has over-engineered the heck out of this thing and one single bolt that mounts the shank to the fluke can handle the theoretical loads of the entire anchor. Plus, if we ever wanted to swap anchors we could break it down and store it fairly easily.
After some final research and scouring the Leopard 38 owners forum on Facebook, we had confirmed that other owners have made a 55 lb anchor fit without any modification to the current bow roller set up. So we put our order in a and had the anchor delivered a few days later.
assembly
Unboxing the anchor there were three separate parts and a bag of bolts with some bolt lubricant. Fortunately, the bolts for the shank and roll bar were clearly separated. Besides reaching out to Mantus, who was super responsive and helpful, to get the torque settings for the bolts, the assembly was very straight forward.
We also bought an anchor mate and Mantus swivel to pair with the anchor at the recommendation of fellow Leopard 38 owners and Mantus themselves. The anchor swivel was a little more tedious to assemble. It is actually four pieces that end up threading together around the anchor chain with the shackle then attaching the anchor to the swivel and the chain. The Mantus instructions however were thorough and following the steps we had the swivel attached to the chain in little time.
We had to make a slight modification to the anchor roller that consisted of just swapping out the pin that held the roller to the assembly, but nothing major.
Probably the hardest thing with the installation was just maneuvering the anchor under our tramp in the dinghy to get it attached to the chain.
Fit
Retrieving the anchor into the bow roller for the first time we noticed a few things that weren’t perfect with the fit. For starters, if we retrieved the anchor too far the roll bar would touch the trampoline. This was also an issue when we tried to nest the anchor into the anchor mate. Needless to say the initial fitting to the anchor mate wasn’t ideal but we figured as we used it we could tweak it accordingly. However, the anchor itself did fit pretty well to the bow roller so we were happy to roll out and put this thing to use. These issues were certainly boat-specific and not a knock on the Mantus products.
Field Test
Throughout the next year, we hauled this anchor from Hampton, VA in the Chesapeake Bay through the long island sound, down east to the islands of Maine, and all the way back to the Florida keys. So we were able to test his anchor in a variety of sea beds types.
Initial impressions were very impressive, from the first time we set this anchor in the muddy, sometimes challenging seabed of the Chesapeake Bay, it was dramatic how hard the anchor grabbed compared to our older Delta anchor. As soon as we backed down on the anchor it almost knocked you off your feet. Setting the anchor was now almost foolproof. Put the boat to the nose or current and then draw back slowly to pay the chain out as straight as possible and as soon as we had the appropriate scope out the Mantus anchor would just grab no matter what sea bed we were setting in. The only exception we saw was down in the Keys where the seabed was silt on a hard flat rock base, which really had nothing to do with the anchor but we found it continued to hold strong there in over 20 knots.
In currents and wind changes, this anchor reset without any issues. We encountered a squall while anchored in Point Judith Harbour of Refuge where the wind did a 180-degree switch from 10 to 15 knots from the south to 20 to 25 knots from the north and as soon as the boat swang and the chain tightened the anchor set hard, so much so that we felt the jerk on the boat and held the entire time we were in the squall. When anchored behind Saint Catherines Island in Georgia, where the currents notoriously run at 2 to 3 knots, the anchor reset immediately after the boat had traveled over the top of the anchor as the current changed.
Overall Impressions
Simply put, buying the new Mantus anchor was some of the best $1000 we ever spent on the boat. Given how expensive boats can be, this was one of the cheaper items but well worth every penny. We viewed it as very cheap boat insurance… having a strong and reliable anchor during poor weather or changing conditions can truly be a life-saver. This anchor exceeded our expectations in all our miles of cruising up and down the east coast of the US. From deep mud to hard sand to deep grassy bottoms, this anchor performed extremely well and really left nothing to be desired except for the described fitment issues on our boat, but that is very boat-specific. Mantus customer support was outstanding and the quality of their products was worth the price. If you’re interested in any of these products and want to purchase them, click the links below and we will get a little kickback to help the website. Please comment below if you have any more questions or experience with these Mantus products.
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GreenJourneyExplorer
Have you encountered any extreme weather conditions that put the Mantus M1 anchor to the test during your year-long cruising journey? How did it perform under these challenging circumstances compared to other anchors you have used in the past?”,
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