Marryat is a high end flyfishing brand name owned by Swiss that has been around for a while. They build quality fly reels using state of the art CNC lathes and mills also used to craft luxury Swiss watches. Marryat usually builds conventional light reels for freshwater fishing but this company more recently started building big game reels for the salt and especially anti-reverse reels. http://www.marryat.com/

The Marryat PLUS reel I received is an upgraded anti-reverse reel. The well-known fyfisherman and fly tier Marc Petitjean, invented this anti-reverse reel and wanted to perfect anti-reverse reels, mainly because anti-reverse reels have a serious drawback. With a standard anti-reverse reel, when the line/backing is pulled out, the handle remains stationary and this is good for your knuckles. However, while winding, the recuperation rate of line/backing is not necessarily positive if the drag is set too low. In other words, there is positive cranking only if the drag is set higher than the force pulling the line/backing out. In a way, this is good because you will unlikely break a tippet if the drag is set right… but you also can waste a lot of energy when cranking because the line is still going out and sometimes this is left unnoticed by the angler. This is something Marc Petitjean wanted to improve.

The PLUS of the Marryat, is that there is a way of adjusting rapidly and easily the drag by squeezing, between the thumb and the index, two press buttons located on the reel’s crank handle. This feature was found first on their online reel and is now found, on top of the PLUS, on the MX PLUS (10-13 wt, ) reel. The quick drag adjustment at the crank handle level is helped by a quite audible outgoing clicker, which tells the angler whether the line is still going out or not.

This allows to not only achieving a positive cranking with that anti-reverse reel, but also to controlling the drag while the line/backing is clearing (so reel palming is not required).

To my knowledge, this is really innovative and genuine. The Marryat PLUS is thus an upgraded anti-reverse reel or a hybrid between an anti-reverse and a dual mode reel (e.g. Seamaster, Henschel and Stenzel).

Some numbers:

Line: WFF 9wt with 200yds of 20# dacron backing

Number of parts: 41

Weight: 6 oz / 191g

Aluminum grade: Type III (hard anodized)

Stainless steel grade: NEW lead free AA 6023 (AlMgSiSnBi= A4)

Drag material: Self lubricated Teflon pads

MSRP: $850

The feather light, yet strong, frame/spool unit.  

The Marryat PLUS is incredibly light for its class size, more especially for an anti-reverse reel. This does not mean that this reel is fragile. Though fully ventilated and actually completely opened, the frame is strong because, unlike most reels, the outer ring is present (cage). The outer ring greatly helps maintaining the structural integrity of the frame. The reel foot is screwed on the thickest portion of the frame so that once locked onto a reel seat, I was not able to twist the reel sideways: this means that, when under heavy load, the spool will not rub against the frame… a problem that is encountered with some reels… especially when the angler cranks with the rod sideways.  

The A4 stainless steel spindle is screwed with 3 screws on the thick back of the frame. The machined back plate is actually the base of the spindle and it fits into a recessed area on the back of the frame. On the base of the spindle there is a Teflon thrust bearing with stainless steel balls. An “O” ring that fits into a slight groove on the spindle secures this thrust bearing.

This thrust bearing helps for a free rotation of the spool when the spool is pressed against the frame and the drag is cranked. This thrust bearing is protected by a "V" ring. This ring seals the washers/thrust bearing assemblage from getting wet. Truth is that I never had dust or water there, so this trick does work.  This explains why the inner portion of the spool is recessed (which is unusual). It indeed needs to accommodate that "V" ring.

The spool is completely vented and it has no bearings but instead bronze bushings which will never fail (YEAH BABY!).  

The spool holds the outgoing clicker which sticks out of the center tube of the spool. It is a piece of black Teflon closed tube mounted on a stainless steel spring. This clicker rubs against the teeth of the gear located on the cranking plate when the spool rotates (unusual:  normally, this is the contrary, the outgoing clicker being mounted on the frame). The spool freely spins on the spindle with no start up inertia. The outer edge of the spool has a nice rim for conventional palming.

As you can see, at Marryat, they kept the frame/spool unit very simple… yet strong, light and reliable. Spools are just spools with no draw bar and spring and, as such, are inexpensive and perfectly balanced for high-speed revolution.

The crank plate and the drag

Until now, the drag has yet to be described since it is not located between the spool and the frame. The drag is indeed located between the crank plate and the spool, which is quite unusual.

The crank plate has thick aluminum walls and holds the one-way clutch cassettte, as well as the drag pads. However, what you see can be very deceptive and misleading… as I showed that reel to people in the business… and it took them time to figure out where was the drag.

The crank plate as an outer ring, that holds through three pillars evenly separated (at a 120 degrees angle), a central hub. That hub has a silver screw on cap that protects the one-way clutch cassette. This cassette is often confounded with the drag… but it is NOT.

This cassette is proprietary to Marryat and as such, I cannot divulgate what is inside… but it is basically a similar system than the one found on Bauer (or Magla reel on this web site). That system is tough (tougher than standard one way bearings) and, because it is sealed in a cassette, it is easy to flip over the cassette to switch the reel from right to left hand wind and conversely. The two sides of the cassette have different colors: when brown sits on top the reel is set for left hand wind, and when the black side is on top, the reel is set for right hand wind. This switch is definitely easier to do than on other "Dual Mode" reels on the market. The cassette has a notch that locks into a stationary stainless steel rod inside the hub. The center of the cassette has a hexagonal hole where the hex head of the spindle fits. Once closed, one can see that the silver screw on cap is bored and that the inside walls have teeth. These teeth rub against the head of the outgoing clicker when the spool spins, thus producing a quite audible sound.

So, where is the drag then?

The drag is reduced to a minimum surface of friction area, but is very efficient, because the surface of friction is set on the outside diameter far away from the enough from the center of rotation giving it a bigger lever force compared to other reels. In addition the drag is dual:

1) The main drag is composed of three little Teflon pin heads in grey located in the inside of the outer ring of the crank plate. These pin heads press against the slightly elevated outer rim of the spool when the drag knob is cranked. Because the surface area of drag is reduced, this limits the start up inertia, but when the drag knob is completely cranked, the drag is very strong (over 8 pounds) and is enough for most fishing applications. The drag knob is conventional and has an arrow on top of it to show where it should be turned to increase (or decrease) the drag. The drag knob is completely cranked in 1.5 revolutions.

2) The second part of the drag is composed of the two studs that stick out on the inside of the outer ring of the crank plate. These two studs stick out when the push buttons on the crank handle are squeezed… and the more they are squeezed, the more they stick out, thus providing extra drag. That extra drag is not really an additional area of friction, but more an increase in pressure on the crank plate that pivots a bit, thus providing more pressure on the spool at the level of the Teflon pin heads. The drag can then nearly triple when it is set at 3-4 pounds test drag (a common initial drag setting) and when the studs are fully extended.

So, how do these two drags work?

When the line is going out, the spool spins, the clutch is engaged and the spool is slowed down by the drag which can be stronger if the push buttons on the crank handle (which remains stationary) are squeezed. When winding, the clutch is disengaged and the spool only spins if the drag is set too low compared to the force pulling the line out. Squeezing the push buttons on the crank handle while winding, increases the drag force to the point that the spool does not spin anymore and, as such, a positive cranking is applied. If the push buttons are squeezed all the way down and the drag is set quite high, the reel becomes a direct drive reel when winding… but the handle does not kick back during sudden bursts.

The real reel test

I found that the dual PLUS’s drag was very efficient and strong. It was very easy to control a tough fight with either a 30 permit or a 50 lemon shark, without breaking them off. The feeling of that drag was different than cork though. The drag was quite loud in the beginning when the reel was new but the noise did attenuate after a while, so there is definitely a “breaking in” period with this reel. I also found that at high drag settings, the drag was a bit jerky this, especially when using the handle drag feature to add more drag. It was still acceptable, but not as silky smooth as with my other cork drag reels. I imagine that this could cause the loss of a fish… but I have to admit that I have not lost any fish since I have been using this reel (even though my initial drag setting is set high). The outgoing clicker was superb and was a great helper in knowing how much I needed to push these push buttons on the handle to cancel out the spool rotation (= positive cranking). Being able to control the drag with the touch of his fingers is a unique feature that I personally liked with that reel.