Aaron
At the risk of going off on another religious tangent, the Fortress is without peer when used as a storm anchor. I think it is not suitable for day to day anchoring. I keep an FX-85 for a storm anchor stowed below. Maybe this is overkill. I don’t know what the correct size for a storm anchor is, nor would I trust anyone to compute this. Most articles I’ve read use 60kts as a benchmark. I figured that I’d find the biggest anchor that can be stowed below and match the ground tackle to whatever that rating is. The FX-85 is the biggest anchor I could find. A comparable sized CQR, Bruce, or even danforth would be too large to fit in your lazarette and would be too heavy to lift. The fortress disassembles for storage. The individual pieces are light enough to be easily handled. The two fasteners you mention are not under load. They just snug down the crossbar and keep it from sliding. The FX-85 is rated at 21,000 lbs holding power in hard sand. This is about 4 times w
hat yo
u need to anchor a 424 in 60kts of wind. In theory, this would hold the boat in over 100kts.
Disadvantages of this kind of setup are that the anchor won’t set in weed and can have trouble resetting if the wind shifts directions (assuming that the thing would even pull out). You can increase the odds of the anchor resetting if you use a good length of heavy chain. It takes about 30 minutes to dig the fortress and the 200′ of 1″ rode and 40′ of 1/2″ chain out of the locker, set it up on the fordeck, and set the anchor. Once set, it can be very difficult to retrieve. Even running over it under power to pull it out is difficult. It won’t stow on the bow roller. Being made of aluminum with stainless fasteners, it would be subject to corrosion if left on deck.
Here’s an interesting link
http://www.rocna.com/press/press_0612_wm_ym_testing.pdf
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Rich Carter
Original message
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