is that it is possible to have a single anchor for almost all conditions. Yes, our previous cruising grounds (Northeast US) had a lot of heavy eel grass and kelp. The rocna digs right through it like a knife and finds the mud underneath and holds hard (we back down with 2 engines at 2500rpm, which is about 30kt of wind worth of pull for us). The cqr and bruce NEVER set in that stuff. The delta was hit and miss. I haven't tried the spade in kelp. I wouldn't try the fortress - I have that only as a kedge anchor or single line of pull secondary. The buegel, on which aspects of the rocna are based, is widely used throughout the Med as the only anchor to cut through the notorious weed there, so that is further evidence that sharp, plate-based anchors work well in grass. I haven't tried a fisherman (we tossed that one off the boat without ever using it) but suspect the rocna would outperform it in weed over mud.

So I do in fact have anchors for all conditions. And again, that is the point you are missing about the rocna/manson/spade types of anchors - you really can rethink the "quiver of anchors" misperception. I stay out of big rocks and coral, although the rocna will hook those as well as any other anchor. You are in the Caribbean - why carry anchors for Alaska kelp and rock conditions?

I know it is impossible to get people stuck on cqr's to understand the above point so I really don't try. However, I have been doing this a very long time with all of these anchors and have the experimental evidence. If my mind seems less open, it is because I have discarded, through experience and experimentation, non-working options.

As far as anchors that keep burying (or plowing), anchors will only bury to the point that they counteract the pull on them. In softer mud and sand, we have buried our rocna past the rollbar many times. We have also only had it half-buried in clay and packed sand/mud. Our spade buries the same amount in these conditions, even though it doesn't have the roll bar. At times when the rocna is only partially buried, I got in the water to watch it while Michele pulled back with two engines at 2500rpm. The chain went straight and bar tight and the anchor didn't budge or bury further. In one of these cases, we experienced a night of 35-40kt winds and the anchor was still only partially buried the next day with no dragging (although 3 boats around us dragged severely). In these cases, I believe that the anchor would bury further with greater force if it was present. So, the rocna will bury past its rollbar, but often doesn't because it holds as is. The spade seems to act similarly, although I suspect that there do exist conditions where the rollbar will be detrimental and perform worse than the spade. I can assure you that the cqr will have given up the ghost well before those conditions are met.

I didn't mean to imply that WM doesn't have a vested interest in anchors, just that WM did not sell rocna when they made those tests. They did sell cqr's, yet pointed out how astonished they were on how poorly that anchor performed. WM makes a ton more profit off the cqr and claw than the rocna. The cqr is also more expensive than the rocna. So I don't buy your hypothesis that they doctored a test to make the cqr look bad. I don't know what video they are showing because I haven't seen it. The video may show setting in different areas, but that doesn't necessarily negate the point being made or disqualify the results. Again, WM has a profit motive to do just the opposite.

The person whose picture of the anchors I posted also did a video study of setting those anchors. He is an amateur with a strange predilection for anchors. In it, the anchors were placed and set right next to each other in a uniform mud bottom. Rocna and spade set instantly while the cqr dragged forever - often sideways or upside down despite his attempts to manually push the point into the surface to "preset" it. He then veered the pull 180* and the rocna and spade set within their lengths and the cqr dragged forever. Unfortunately, I don't have his youtube URL - maybe someone else does, or he is on this forum. There is also a guy in NZ who sells anchoring gear, with no vested interest in any single manufacturer, who also did a lot of more controlled tests with many different anchors. He did it because he was tired of the flaws in the other tests. His results were the same as the "flawed" tests - the newer generation anchors outperformed all others by a significant margin, in widely different bottom conditions, through shifts and veers and surges. He posted a lot on another forum about these tests and I have communicated with him personally about anchors when deciding on which of ours to keep. So there are more evidence and tests than just the PS and WM ones - some from regular guys like you and me attempting to correct the flaws of those tests.

I don't believe that any kind of test, no matter how controlled and no matter who does it will ever satisfy everyone. I find it amazing that they are even attempted at all. It doesn't take a physicist to understand anchors, judge performance and critically evaluate other's experiences. Scientific evidence and hard theory is not always obtained with testing (Einstein was mostly correct, even though it was 50 years after uniform acceptance of his theories before a suitable test could be devised and undertaken).

Look at the pictures, or actual samples, of equal weight anchors, think about how anchors work and what factors go into their setting and holding in various conditions, critically evaluate even the flawed anchor tests and read about other's experiences (we held tight in Deshies Guadeloupe for days, even with charter boats hanging off us during 180* wind shifts in the middle of the night and another boats anchor chain wrapped with ours). Watch other's around you drag and note the anchor in use. Then make a good (even a scientific) hypothesis and do some testing yourself. That is what we did, and how we ended up with our anchor gear.

Until we got to the Caribbean and experienced boats with FOB/Brittany anchors for the first time, 100% of all boats we have seen drag throughout the Northeast, Chesapeake, Bahamas and Caribbean were on cqr's. That number encompasses ~30-40 different boats. Well, not quite 100% - there was one guy who dragged everywhere in the Bahamas using a fisherman anchor as his primary. Now that we are in the Caribbean, we count boats with FOB/Brittany anchors along with those with CQR's as boats we move away from if they anchor upwind of us. Luckily, with a catamaran, there aren't too many anchored upwind of us.

I might have missed this, but if you find the anchor tests are critically flawed, and that roll bar anchors without the roll bar are identical to the CQR, and that the films are specifically doctored to make the CQR look bad, and that anchor holding has all do to the skill of the operator, why do you want to replace your CQR?

The intent of messages don't always translate well in writing. I intend my writing as a debate and not an argument or disagreement in the common sense of those terms.

See you down here soon!

Mark