What's the worst anchor?

[zoidberg]

We've thrashed the 'Best Anchor' contretemps half to death. There are lots of good anchors, I've concluded, also good chain and very good rope rode. 'You pays your money and takes your choice...' Whatever, apply a modicum of common sense and all will come out right. Mostly.

But.... what constitutes the WORST anchor? The type we can all agree we'd steer both friends and foes away from. Could we find a consensus?
Sure, there have been some weird and wonderful contraptions - but we mostly can take one look, have a brief guffaw, and move on. Let's try to confine ourselves, l implore, to what we'd find these days in fairly civilised chandleries which we'd generally recognise as anchors... of sorts.

To set the ball rolling, I nominate the poor copy, cheap steel Danforth - of which there are thousands rusting away remorselessly in bilges nationwide.

 

[thinwater]

Folding grapnels. I tested a few in knee deep water and good sand, and the hold was so poor it was easier pull them too me than to walk over to them. They might hold a life ring.

Some of the poor copy Danforths will hold a ton, particularly if you sharpen the flukes. Some are junk.

 

[ChromeDome]

'You pays your money and takes your choice...' Whatever, apply a modicum of common sense and all will come out right. Mostly.

..thousands rusting away remorselessly in bilges..

That can be paraphrased as "find out what you want your anchor to do and pay what it costs" and "if you never use it anyway, it can be the cheapest copy of anything".

Therefore, you must have the same requirements as others to take their advice.

Folding grapnels rarely meet any requirements and thus are commonly used only as dead weight.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Folding grapnels. I tested a few in knee deep water and good sand, and the hold was so poor it was easier pull them too me than to walk over to them. They might hold a life ring.

Some of the poor copy Danforths will hold a ton, particularly if you sharpen the flukes. Some are junk.

I appreciate their holding is poor but we carry a folding grapnel in the dinghy. We often use it to hold the dinghy off a jetty (med style mooring) when wind and swell would be pushing the dinghy & outboard against the jetty and causing damage.

Please note that this is NOT on dinghy docks in sheltered waters where tying up with a LONG painter is best practice.

Anyway my point is that even folding grapnels have their uses

 

[Roberto]

This is a good contender

 

[geem]

Folding grapnels. I tested a few in knee deep water and good sand, and the hold was so poor it was easier pull them too me than to walk over to them. They might hold a life ring.

Some of the poor copy Danforths will hold a ton, particularly if you sharpen the flukes. Some are junk.

For the dinghy, in rocks they work very well, to the point that they are often hard/impossible to recover. A number of times we have had to dive to free it. I agree in sand they are pretty rubbish.

 

[Refueler]

There is no best anchor .. as there is no worst anchor ....

The two marks rely on where and what conditions used.

Many people I know who have reasonable smallish boats up to 20+ ft use a concrete block on end of a rope ... to anchor in the deep / wide river where I live .. block usually about 30 x 30cms ... not to heavy to handle .. but heavy enough to hold against the slow river flow + any wind ..

 

[Refueler]

For the dinghy, in rocks they work very well, to the point that they are often hard/impossible to recover. A number of times we have had to dive to free it. I agree in sand they are pretty rubbish.

The folding grapnel was never designed as a general purpose anchor ... its for 'unusual' beds / use for lines to shore etc.

If I was to say an anchor that may claim as worst ... then I put forward the 'Mushroom' or Mud Anchor ... Its great when buried to provide as 'sinker' for mooring in deep mud. But as an anchor - it tends to roll due to its 'mushroom' head shape and not set.

 

[Roberto]

Anyway my point is that even folding grapnels have their uses

I used it to grab from the sea bottom objects the kids had thrown overboard while in port, once even a mainsail I had left on the pontoon and during the night bad weather threw it in the water

 

[Refueler]

Isn't the clue in the name ? Grapnel ?

 

[Stemar]

I had a perfectly good CQR that bit first time, every time until the engine died coming off my mooring, and it was anchor in a hurry or bounce off a few boats as we drifted down the harbour on the tide. Inevitably, we hooked a trot. I tried to dive for it, but I had too much built-in buoyancy, so my CQR is still there.

I got a replacement at a boat jumble, presumably a copy, as I didn't know much about these things at the time. I never could get the bloody thing to set, so for me, that was the worst anchor.

 

[bergie]

This one I saw on a small sport fishing boat is a strong contender. A rock tied to a string, just like ancient Egyptians used as an anchor. But theirs at least had spells carved into them to improve holding...

In our previous anchorage we watched a fleet of gaff rigged wooden boats try to anchor with various takes on the fisherman. Despite the light conditions (wind around 15kt), it took most of them a half hour to find a patch of seaweed where the anchor would hold at least for a moment...

 

[vyv_cox]

We anchored on a small grapnel anchor in the Canal du Midi. Arrived at a lock just as the staff began their two hour lunch break. Fortunately the light wind was blowing in line with the canal.

 

[zoidberg]

I think 'bergie' is on to something....

But theirs at least had spells carved into them to improve holding...

 

[bergie]

I think 'bergie' is on to something....

Roman anchors look a bit more modern. We're considering to get some of those spells carved into our Vulcan whenever it needs regalvanising...

(Picture from the Cartagena museum of maritime archaeology)

 

[Daydream believer]

Our club normally use fixed race marks, but for the polar series & open meetings we lay inflatable ones on perfectly good anchors with 16mm multiplait rodes.
However, the worse anchors are the ones that the safety boat crews forget to attach the buoy to before they chuck them overboard.
We lose one or two every year inspite of telling them to tie the damned rode to the buoy BEFORE they leave the shore. But as you can guess,-- some know better & hate being told, so it seems that they deliberately do not do it.

 

[Sybarite]

CQR. In a test by a French magazine the holding results for the CQR were so poor that they deliberately excluded it from the final round-up. It was also the most expensive in the line-up.

 

[B27]

Fishermen's in pure mud.
Crude weight that crooks your back lifting it.
Anything with moving parts that attacks your fingers.
Anything that costs so much it makes you cry when you can't retrieve it from the seabed?

 

[Sea Change]

I paid £35 at Gaelforce for a 16kg, brand new, Delta 'style' anchor. I don't think I was ever successful getting it to hold. One time we were slowly dragging and I threw down my 3kg dinghy anchor, which stopped us instead.

 

[vyv_cox]

I paid £35 at Gaelforce for a 16kg, brand new, Delta 'style' anchor. I don't think I was ever successful getting it to hold. One time we were slowly dragging and I threw down my 3kg dinghy anchor, which stopped us instead.

This illustrates just how sensitive the geometry is to setting and holding. One of the Rocnas tested by Panope was given to him bent, which he attempted to straighten. The result for this anchor was very poor, as published. For me this destroys all credibility for his testing.
Anchors submitted for testing by Rocna are (were) checked by them for perfect geometry.