Neeves
Well-known member
If someone is looking for an anchor recommendation on almost any forum one of the recommendations is to look at the 'Panope' videos. You would need to be very patient to watch all the videos, it would take days but there are summary spread sheets, of which this is one
On this spread sheet one Rocna had its shank misaligned but the other Rocna, defined as '2020' is a regular production model.
The stunning conclusion is that the Rocna 2020 is not rated as good as a CQR and really not much better than a Bruce or Delta. 15 years ago that same Rocna was the best thing since sliced bread and in 2006 when YM reported on the West Marine tests - Rocna was the best anchor - in terms of hold. Hold is not measured for the Panope videos - a major and critical omission in my book - in fact I don't know how you can judge an anchor if you do not measure ultimate hold.
As mentioned by a forum member last week Rocna seems to be subject to some bad press. If I look at the spread sheet Rocna performs particularly poorly in terms of resetting, veering, tip weight to total weight and self launching.
If we go back some years Morgans Cloud removed their recommendation for Rocna as a result of Rocna anchors dragging resulting in yachts on beaches and I did some clogging tests, which underlined what MC had said - the fluke is prone to clogging and the anchor will not reset until it 'self cleans'.
If I walk round a local marine and check the anchors on bow rollers the most common modern anchor is a Rocna. Reading posts here, on YBW, Rocna is a common and popular anchor. I don't recall anyone on YBW complaining of the performance of a Rocna (but I may well have missed something).
My conclusion is that the Panope tests do not reflect reality - if they did I would not see so many Rocna anchors and we would have even more anchor threads - devoted to people dumping their Rocna in favour of other designs. The Panope videos are tremendously popular and are becoming or are very powerful. If they don't reflect reality - they are dangerous. If they damn a product that people find more than satisfactory do they praise a product for situations that don't exist.
I'm not a Rocna fan, I jointly wrote the article in YM with Vyv Cox on the bendy shank saga and I am aware that on retrieval a Rocna can lift a big clog of seabed - necessitating some effort with a deck wash. This same clot is part of the bad press that Rocna suffers - but this seabed clog actually does not seem to deter buyers. Though I'm not a fan of Rocna my views are partly emotive, the bendy shank saga, and I do think there are better anchor (though many would say a Rocna is the best). However I am not a great supporter of evidence that does not reflect what the market appears to think and I too think Rocna is being unfairly maligned.
Declaring our usage - we use an aluminium Excel, aluminium Spade and Fortress, are testing a Viking 10 as our primary (and neither of our aluminium anchors gets a good press either! ). I also think the Mantus M1 grossly overrated (in the spreadsheet) and am suspicious of the damning of the Epsilon (as I simply cannot believe Lewmar got it so wrong - very subjective . ). I cannot comment on the Epsilon, Mantus M2, nor Vulcan, not on the spreadsheet - I have never used any of them
Take care, stay safe
Jonathan
On this spread sheet one Rocna had its shank misaligned but the other Rocna, defined as '2020' is a regular production model.
The stunning conclusion is that the Rocna 2020 is not rated as good as a CQR and really not much better than a Bruce or Delta. 15 years ago that same Rocna was the best thing since sliced bread and in 2006 when YM reported on the West Marine tests - Rocna was the best anchor - in terms of hold. Hold is not measured for the Panope videos - a major and critical omission in my book - in fact I don't know how you can judge an anchor if you do not measure ultimate hold.
As mentioned by a forum member last week Rocna seems to be subject to some bad press. If I look at the spread sheet Rocna performs particularly poorly in terms of resetting, veering, tip weight to total weight and self launching.
If we go back some years Morgans Cloud removed their recommendation for Rocna as a result of Rocna anchors dragging resulting in yachts on beaches and I did some clogging tests, which underlined what MC had said - the fluke is prone to clogging and the anchor will not reset until it 'self cleans'.
If I walk round a local marine and check the anchors on bow rollers the most common modern anchor is a Rocna. Reading posts here, on YBW, Rocna is a common and popular anchor. I don't recall anyone on YBW complaining of the performance of a Rocna (but I may well have missed something).
My conclusion is that the Panope tests do not reflect reality - if they did I would not see so many Rocna anchors and we would have even more anchor threads - devoted to people dumping their Rocna in favour of other designs. The Panope videos are tremendously popular and are becoming or are very powerful. If they don't reflect reality - they are dangerous. If they damn a product that people find more than satisfactory do they praise a product for situations that don't exist.
I'm not a Rocna fan, I jointly wrote the article in YM with Vyv Cox on the bendy shank saga and I am aware that on retrieval a Rocna can lift a big clog of seabed - necessitating some effort with a deck wash. This same clot is part of the bad press that Rocna suffers - but this seabed clog actually does not seem to deter buyers. Though I'm not a fan of Rocna my views are partly emotive, the bendy shank saga, and I do think there are better anchor (though many would say a Rocna is the best). However I am not a great supporter of evidence that does not reflect what the market appears to think and I too think Rocna is being unfairly maligned.
Declaring our usage - we use an aluminium Excel, aluminium Spade and Fortress, are testing a Viking 10 as our primary (and neither of our aluminium anchors gets a good press either! ). I also think the Mantus M1 grossly overrated (in the spreadsheet) and am suspicious of the damning of the Epsilon (as I simply cannot believe Lewmar got it so wrong - very subjective . ). I cannot comment on the Epsilon, Mantus M2, nor Vulcan, not on the spreadsheet - I have never used any of them
Take care, stay safe
Jonathan