Who wants a new anchor for Christmas?

[Chris_Robb]

I think modern anchors make good use of the technology available. The CQR is old technology and was designed for a specific purpose. Saying that I have 40lb CQR as a second bow anchor, and when I needed it in a hurry it worked.

My main anchor is a 21Kg Delta which until this year had never let me down, but I'm finding it drags in very soft mud/sand no matter how much chain I use. I use a Fortess FX11 + 8m 10mm chain as a kedge, but I find it holds us (15 tons) very well in soft mud/sand. Never dragged yet even in 35kts on the beam.

Horses for courses then.

My take on this is that the Delta, being a plough type, just ploughs a furrow, but sets easily, therefore the softer the bottom the more it ploughs its way along. An Manson, Rocna, and Spade are diggers, and instead of ploughing along the surface they dig in further and Further. The Fortress perhaps comes under the digger, but not sure. I have one, but never used it yet, as the Manson is so easy to launch and recover.

 

[doug748]

- and another thing while I am at it. Why do the latest miracles always cost more than the old and trusted (ish)? In some cases TEN times more.
We all know they are a good old mild steel fabrication costing about twenty quid to produce, inc delivery from China. So why?

 

[Poignard]

- and another thing while I am at it. Why do the latest miracles always cost more than the old and trusted (ish)? In some cases TEN times more.
We all know they are a good old mild steel fabrication costing about twenty quid to produce, inc delivery from China. So why?

And are they TEN times as good or is this another case of "diminishing returns"?

 

[Wandering Star]

As I recall, Jimi made a quantity purchase of several dozen disposable fibreboard anchors a couple of years ago after he had become frustrated by the loss of several genuine but expensive CQR beasties. They were cheap as chips, made in Korea I think. Being light, there was speculation on these forums about how they'd perform in practice though it was generally agreed the concept of disposable anchors seemed good. Has anyone any information how they did perform in practice?

Cheers, Brian.

 

[James_Calvert]

Notwithstanding the controversies above, and in the article, on what anchor's best - I thought the article appeared well researched and on a very relevant topic, akin to those I remember reading in YM and PBO decades ago.

Shame - yes shame - that we're only getting it secondhand from a French periodical. I suppose I should be grateful that I didn't have to buy it and read it in the original.

 

[craigsmith]

Commercial ships don't use high tech anchors, they manage.

Commercial ships have to use symmetrical designs for reasons of practicality, and the scale is totally incomparable with small boats.

- and another thing while I am at it. Why do the latest miracles always cost more than the old and trusted (ish)? In some cases TEN times more.

A genuine CQR 45 lb from Gael Force = £715.95; a genuine Rocna 20 from Piplers of Poole = £411. Maybe you'd like to consider that the latter will offer double the performance (or may be half the size and so even less costly) and far greater reliability, and reconsider your ideas relating to value for money.

~

Just to throw some perspective on things, here's some more reliable data once again from the 2006 West Marine / SAIL testing, which continues to be the only remotely valid bit of testing done in recent years which includes most all anchors of interest:

 

[Chris_Robb]

- and another thing while I am at it. Why do the latest miracles always cost more than the old and trusted (ish)? In some cases TEN times more.
We all know they are a good old mild steel fabrication costing about twenty quid to produce, inc delivery from China. So why?

10 times the price???????????????? RUBBISH

This is the price of a Gebuine CQR 20KG is £779.94
http://www.safety-marine.co.uk/Anch...rs/Genuine-CQR-Anchor.htm?P1006-S36-#add2cart

And the price of a 20 KG Manson Supreme - is £390

Mild Steel - no - they are an expensive Bismuth Steel. Yes - cheap anchors could well be made out of mild steel, so watch out - you gets what you pay for, to think anything else is naive.

 

[carise]

Can we lobby Which? magazine to do a trial?????

Notwithstanding the controversies above, and in the article, on what anchor's best - I thought the article appeared well researched and on a very relevant topic, akin to those I remember reading in YM and PBO decades ago.

Shame - yes shame - that we're only getting it secondhand from a French periodical. I suppose I should be grateful that I didn't have to buy it and read it in the original.

 

[Ubergeekian]

I have been reading about new miracle anchors for forty years. Always amazing results, always new ones along in a few years.
I suspect it has more to do with retailing than anything else. Stick with what you have or just buy a bigger one.

Absolutely. We've known for decades that a thin, pointy anchor sets well and that a heavy, solid anchor lasts well. Every design in existence is a compromise between the two, and in the long term "long lasting" has always won.

 

[Ubergeekian]

Maybe I'm some kind of anchor setting god but I've not noticed the trad anchors being tricky to set.

My experience too. I've only once had a problem with my CQR-alike rip-off, and that was at Ardanamir. We had a fluctuating northeasterly wind and a strong northwesterly tide, with the boat changiing from tide-rode to wind-rode and back every time the wind rose and fell. The result was the anchor pulling our, resetting, pulling out, resetting and the boat performing a gentle wander due west. We had to motor forwards three or four times in the night to re-anchor ... and every time we did so at least three other boats were doing the same thing, so it seemed to be a very general problem.

I reckon the biggest problems people have with anchoring come from using (a) too small an anchor and (b) too little chain.

 

[doug748]

And the price of a 20 KG Manson Supreme - is £390

...and Jimmy Green will sell you a similar, imported, welded anchor for 70 quid.

Mind you, can't knock the business plan if they can sell steel fabrications at over £10,000 per ton.

 

[Ubergeekian]

A genuine CQR 45 lb from Gael Force = £715.95; a genuine Rocna 20 from Piplers of Poole = £411. Maybe you'd like to consider that the latter will offer double the performance (or may be half the size and so even less costly) and far greater reliability, and reconsider your ideas relating to value for money.

On the other hand, we've seen pictures posted on these forums of Rocnas with tips turned up like a jester's shoes. So you should probably be comparing one CQR with a Rocna every couple of years.

 

[Chris_Robb]

...and Jimmy Green will sell you a similar, imported, welded anchor for 70 quid.

Mind you, can't knock the business plan if they can sell steel fabrications at over £10,000 per ton.

And would you rely on it???? ok for lunch stops - but thats it

 

[BelleSerene]

rather than sticking your head in the sand

That's the worst way to anchor your boat.

 

[Chris_Robb]

That's the worst way to anchor your boat.

Seems to be popular round here!

 

[craigsmith]

On the other hand, we've seen pictures posted on these forums of Rocnas with tips turned up like a jester's shoes. So you should probably be comparing one CQR with a Rocna every couple of years.

Sorry but rubbish, you've seen one Rocna with about a 1 mm turned edge because the guy hung the anchor up on a rock or similar. Even the best quality of steel is steel, no matter the brand, and subject to the laws of physics. What you've really done there is found yourself looking for a reason to deny progress, and seized on a possible opportunity when it came along.

If you buy into the drop-forged line and really think a CQR is all that, you are seriously misled. Even between the old generation anchors, in tests the cast Bruce is around 3x stronger. Here's some more of that perspective - genuine CQR:

 

[dmmbruce]

Anchor weights, and are fakes

Please can Craigsmith or someone tell me how to distinguish genuine anchors from the mild steel or other type fakes. I have been shown one, referred to as a clone, that looked identical to the supposed genuine one, I don't remember the type fortress or something. I could see very little difference. The clone was cheaper, but was it worse just for coming from a cheaper source?

Also, how do we compare like with like. I use a 'genuine' cqr 25lb in all sorts of bottom, and very rarely have a setting problem. Never have over 50 years or so on different boats and varying chain/rope ratios etc etc.. My father and now I have always anchored for choice. I also use a 'genuine' bruce 15lb (I think) as a bower. The bruce also holds very well, sets very well, there seems to be no difference except that it is easier to get the lighter one back on board. Both have lots of chain and lots of anchorplait.

Are these two anchors supposed to be of similar performance?

How do we interpret the interesting chart on a previous post? To me it looks like a load of grahically presented data and no information. Pretty but useless.

There must be a sensible coherent article about all this somewhere.

Help please.

Mike

 

[craigsmith]

Mike, I could write a book in response, have a look here to start:
www.rocna.com/kb

Just on copies/fakes, there are only really a few "genuine" brands - CQR/Bruce/Danforth/Delta/WASI/Spade/Rocna, not exhaustive - which you will become familiar with, and then there are a collection of companies around the world which make branded copies or variations of these, which again you can become familiar with - Davis/Kingston/Fortress/Manson/Ultra/Plastimo et al - and then there are the really bad counterfeits which might even fake the brand. Quality (and price) tends to deteriorate in this same order. In essence you are dependent on brand reputation (and that of the reseller in the case of counterfeits - beware eBay etc). An engineer with experience can guess at steel types from galvanizing finish etc but there's no real way to be sure by looking.

The chart above contains the data from West Marine's test in 2006. The more important figures are the averaged holding power bars in black. The measure is a scaled holding power per-unit-of-weight, so a directly fair comparison across the range. So the black bars are a direct measure of performance. The grey bars are the maximum peak recorded - ideally the black and grey bars should top out close to each other, indicating consistency of performance across the multiple trials in the test (a large discrepancy indicates at least one failure). The absence of the grey bar indicates roll-instability; i.e. the anchor has pulled out instead of staying set when dragged, thus the max peak is no higher than the actual holding power. And finally, the presence of the red bar is just a measure of a failure to set. So a bit complex, but you can see it is actually very comprehensive and tells a complete story.

On the CQR, since that appears to really be the underlying topic of this thread, many folk report no problems in years of usage. That's fine, but this experience tends to be formed in relatively easy environments. The majority of long distance cruisers very quickly find problems with it. In any case, even in the soft grounds that it was designed for, it's still the case that a new generation anchor can offer double the performance for half the cost, or put another way could replace your CQR for half the weight and a quarter the cost.
Look up the article "old generation anchors" on PeterSmith.net.nz.

 

[dmmbruce]

Thank-you Craig. I will go away and read.

Anchoring is important to me as I have a cat with a centre mounted outboard so I have difficulty with control in tight places, and almost no control at less than about 2.5 knots. Side winds are a big problem. Marinas are therefore not appropriate! Though in Poole now, we have rather specialised in anchoring in awkward places, west coast uk, Milford Haven etc, up to IOM for years, plus conway and up west scotland. But we do try to avoid being caught in bad weather. My father was usually singlehanded, so am I. Hence my careful interest.

Mike.

 

[Ubergeekian]

Sorry but rubbish, you've seen one Rocna with about a 1 mm turned edge because the guy hung the anchor up on a rock or similar.

Hmm. Perhaps the east coast river boys will go for them, but I think I'll avoid an anchor which can't cope with hitting rocks, thanks.

If you buy into the drop-forged line and really think a CQR is all that, you are seriously misled. Even between the old generation anchors, in tests the cast Bruce is around 3x stronger. Here's some more of that perspective - genuine CQR

Yup, the strength shown in that picture certainly demonstrates why people buy CQRs. And just think how well dug in it must have been.

Don't get me wrong - I am sure your design is wonderful for occasional use over the short term in easy bottoms, and is probably an ideal buy in the lunch hook market. It's just that for longer distance cruising I'd prefer something a bit more robust.