Which anchor?...I know, I know...

[Trop Cher]

AWB 12 metres 7 tons
North West Scotland

Which anchor would you buy/have experience of?

Spade S80 15kg £480
Rocna 15kg £360
Manson Supreme 16kg £260
Delta 16kg £150
Kobra 2 16kg £125

At the moment, I'm divided between the Spade and the Kobra 2 as I've never read anything negative about either. Is the Spade really worth four times the Kobra 2?

All manufactures except Kobra 2 advise either 15 or 16 kg anchor, Kobra 2 suggests 12 kg for my size of boat. Would you accept this or would you go up one size to 20kg?

Thanks

.

 

[stevensuf]

i just replaced my old bruce claw clone with a kobra 2, they set very easy and hold well , great for the money!

 

[JayBee]

I have a Kiwi Rocna 20 kg on my slightly smaller boat and I have never wished it was 5kg lighter.

 

[Old Troll]

Old Troll

I have had experience of anchoring with the 15 kg spade on the west coast of Scotland and found it excellent. Always gripping first time and never dragging.
An expensive anchor but good value for money.

 

[Twister_Ken]

I have had experience of anchoring with the 15 kg spade on the west coast of Scotland and found it excellent. Always gripping first time and never dragging.
An expensive anchor but good value for money.

Ditto, except on the south coast.

 

[Coaster]

If you're intending to anchor regularly I suggest a 15kg Rocna is rather small. We use a 20kg Rocna on our 34' boat which weighs about 8 tons in cruising trim. It has not (yet) dragged since we started using it in 2009.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

Consider the Fortress too. Pal has a 37 on a boat a lot bigger and heavier than yours and he anchors a lot from Scotland to the Scillies. Thinks its great.

Dont size anchors by weight. Once they have dug in ( a sharp point helps here) its the blade area that matters not the weight.

 

[jordanbasset]

I bought the Kobra 2 but went bigger than recommended(20kg on a 40 foot boat), can't fault the anchor, sets very well and excellent holding even when we have had very big winds.
When I bought it, was almost put off because it was so cheap and kept thinking there must be something wrong with it at that price. Glad I went ahead with it

 

[vyv_cox]

I have a 15 hg Rocna and a 16 kg Delta on a smaller and lighter boat. Until we experienced the combination of extreme gusting winds and a very soft muddy bottom we had never had a problem in 20 years of using a Delta. The Rocna was bought to replace it and is probably better in those conditions, although we have never again been in quite the same situation. On most other occasions the performance of the Rocna is probably slightly better than that of the Delta but there isn't a lot in it. It seems to me that the Delta is just as good where there is a reasonable amount of sand in the bottom, which is probably true of where you are.

I have no experience of the Kobra 2 but its similarity to the Delta suggests it will be as good a performer. Most forumites who have one are more than happy with it.

I believe the costs reflect the same situation that can be seen in many products, where a small improvement in performance over an already good product requires a large investment in development time, materials and construction methods. You need to decide whether you need a Bentley, a BMW or a Ford.

 

[samwise]

Deja Vu? Not so much Groundhog Day as Groundtackle Day. Surely a forum search would yield enough info on this subject to keep you going for weeks -- or are we that short of threads to start?

 

[Rigger Mortice]

Being a cheapskate, and also recognizing the good reports it's had, I would go for the Kobra 2.
I don't however understand the size recomendations on the Plastimo site http://plastimo.com/catalogue/search.php?LangID=1&s_choice=name&text=kobra
which seem to be somewhat contradictory. The second chart appears to recommend 16kg for a boat the size and weight of the OP's.
Maybe I've misinterpreted it?

 

[PCUK]

I've got 16kg Delta on my 26 ft boat. I'd say 16kg for your boat is way undersize.

 

[stevensuf]

16kg on 26 foot now that is ott..... 16kg will be fine on a 7 ton boat. my boat is 43ft an 10.5 ton and the 20kg kobra2 holds just fine.

 

[Plevier]

I've got 16kg Delta on my 26 ft boat. I'd say 16kg for your boat is way undersize.

I think that's OTT too. I was happy with a 10kg on my 29ft, I've just bought a 16kg for my new 32ft, we could have swapped!!!

 

[vyv_cox]

I've had a 10 kg Delta on a 29 ft boat and now have one on a 26 ft one. Perfectly adequate.

 

[Trop Cher]

Thanks for the replys so far.
I've also wondered about the Kobra 2, at that price you just feel that there's a but somewhere. However people who have them always seem happy with their preformance. Also agree that their web site (Plastismo) does them no favours. I can get a 20 kg delivered for £150.

 

[uxb]

Just bought a Spade as they have a very good rep.

I chose it as it's been designed for setting in weedy conditions which is an ever increasing condition on the west coast.
It was expensive but I never slept well with the oversize anchor that it has replaced. That anchor did fail to set on weedy bottoms on a few occasions leading to me changing over to the Fortress kedge - which did bite and hold through a long, breezy , sleepless night. Often I'd thought I was well dug in but on recovering the anchor found it was wrapped in kelp - with no sign of mud or sand......

I never slept well at anchor- I hope to now I've got the Spade.

 

[stevensuf]

A smart phone anchor alarm works wonders for sleep.

 

[stevensuf]

I wish people would stop thinking that just cause something is cheaper it is poorer quality,using that logic my honda eu generator must be so much better than its US counterpart as it is 60% more expensive here!

if you buy an anchor made in new zealand how much of the price do you think is in the cost of shipping it from one extreme of the world to the other? Or in the lack of scale? it costs so much more to produce a 1000 of a unit a year than it does 10.000

 

[Oatcake]

AWB 12 metres 7 tons
North West Scotland

Which anchor would you buy/have experience of?

Spade S80 15kg £480
Rocna 15kg £360
Manson Supreme 16kg £260
Delta 16kg £150
Kobra 2 16kg £125

At the moment, I'm divided between the Spade and the Kobra 2 as I've never read anything negative about either. Is the Spade really worth four times the Kobra 2?

All manufactures except Kobra 2 advise either 15 or 16 kg anchor, Kobra 2 suggests 12 kg for my size of boat. Would you accept this or would you go up one size to 20kg?

Thanks

.

Bearing in mind that you intend to throw this product overboard quite regularly, with the inevitable potential of losing it forever each time, I would suggest that the kobra is the wisest choice. Especially as it seems to perform well in the reviews as well as in real life.

Fwiw I recently replaced my last gen anchor with a kobra, and the price was so keen I event went up a size. If I lose it forever, I've only lost £99, not worth losing sleep over.