Letter from Peter L Littmann

I have been living on my Pacific Seacraft Orion 27 since Nov. 2011 I started from Cambride, MD , spent the first winter in Farendena, FL. Went back north as far as Washington,NC. proceeded south to Southport NC. I left Southport June 22 2012 arrived at Clearlake TX August 25 2012 and was hit by a Searay speed boat 2 hours after arriving. I have lived on the hook all but 9 days of that time. I have a Rocna 10 kilo and a Rocna 15 kilo that is presently my primary anchor, I have been very happy with them up to this point. We were having easterly wind of sustained 15 to 20 knots with gusts of up to 35 knots. When I noticed that I was draging down wind at a very slow rate of under 1 knot. My primary has never done that with all the varied bottoms that I encountered traveling the ICW from Southport around the Keys to Clearlake. I pulled the anchor and noticed that it hadn’t completely burried itself having the rollbar showing the upper third clean of mud. I have an all chain rode of 5/16 ” g4 and always set my anchor by backing down at 2300 rpms on the 2Qm15 Yanmar engine that is in Thalassa. I have been doing my own tests with a Mantus 8lb that I purchased at Boaters resale. I do admit that my testing is a little ruthless but I have no time in my life for fabicated truth. I have had the Mantus taking all the strain for the past 2 weeks on Clearlake with 12 feet of 1/4 chain and 3/8″ rode of about 15 meters. I have reset the anchor every other day from my dinghy, and am very pleased with the holding as well as the retrieval. It sets quickly, holds fast and can be retrieved with the dinghy. It has come to the surface with no mud clogged on the fluke but once, and that time there was only about 20% of the fluke covered, witch was easily cleared with a few dunks in the water. The performance has been as good or better than my 16.5 lb claw anchor that I have to retrieve with Thaalassa, not being able to pull it out of the bottom with the dinghy. Clearlake has got a top cover of pudding mud that covers really hard mud. I will be leaving for North Carolina within the month after I redo the standing rigging on Thalassa, I have an old master fiberglass craftsman that I have worked with in North Carolina and will take Thalassa there to have the job done properly.