Overall this thread has been a bit to deep in the weeds for me
I know, I know
When my wife and I were getting married, we wrote our own vows that included a few "I promise to... I promise to..." items, which we each had to come up with as a surprise, and then the two sets would have a mirrored structure. They were nice and personalized things about being eventual parent partners, listening, etc., and she added one, "I promise to 'discuss' with you, even if that means pondering what sound a giraffe makes", then turned to the whole place, which was laughing, and said with a tired vibe like anyone who's read even part of this anchor thread "...that happened". It was my favorite moment from the whole wedding
But yes, it was too deep in the weeds even for me, knowing I really could just get any 13-20lb anchor of the new type and be done with it (and believing that) but I wanted to learn what I don't know, even if I choose to ignore it now and later because "it's the largest one that fits" etc..-- to somehow make up, partially, for being 42 and not having anchored overnight once in my life, now fully responsible for wife and two kids and dog on said anchor. Trust is earned, not anointed, and I want them to trust me, and I want me to trust me, and I want to trust my gear in most conditions we'd encounter (and to know when not to trust it, and what to do if I don't). I'd go flying on weekends with my grandfather as a kid, in his old Piper Colt 2-seater, and it was instilled early that you need to trust your gear and check your gear. The stakes are high but the risks are acceptable. I eventually went skydiving, too, and the odds were something like 1 in 250,000 properly packed parachutes fails to deploy, and we had two, so you'd multiply the denominator so 1 over 250,000 x 250,000. And that was data from the old round ones, so it surely would have been better. And my guy was having his 1400th jump, so it took all fear out of it for me (and almost all of the "hey what if" fear/fun feeling), whereas the girls on our trip were screaming lol, I was having a great time albeit a bit boring (!) despite 50 seconds of free fall (I thought you'd have that rollercoaster feeling the whole time; nope, just the initial second or two, then it was just like sticking your head out a sunroof at 120mph). Same thing for a 150' bungee jump over a river I did-- zero accidents in NZ where it was (they took it seriously there, where it was invented)-- and I had a great time but not the "fun" feeling I was expecting; I trusted my gear and the outfit running it. Later I got a motorcycle. Read the books, took the courses, had the gear, trusted my bike, but sold it within months. Despite a high visibility yellow outfit, white full face helmet, and red bike (which was shaft driven, not chain), people would cut me off, not see me, etc.. The actuarial risks of a crash were 1 in 1, and I went from "that wont be me, that's those lane splitter rice rockets" to "oh I totally get it-- it's not you, it's everyone else".
Marketing data on anchors is like the old "how many times (x) zoom is your digital camera" (2x, 5x) from when those were new, and some started including digital zoom rather than optical zoom (optical = actual zoom, like binoculars; digital= which then would just double the size of the existing pixels, creating larger scale with no further detail). So then your new "10x zoom" camera was really 5x plus 5x more digital (just making a 5x picture bigger looking but not any clearer than 5x-- or you taking a 5x and hitting zoom on the computer), and people would overlook the 7x zoom that was really all optical and therefore better. But if that company didn't do it, their sales would suffer, so they basically had to do it to keep up with most people's lack of understanding about things they're using/buying/trusting. Or like now, new dishwashers will say "ours is the quietest" and then you discover (this is true) they are averaging in the decibels of when the machine is sitting OFF, silent, soaking between wash/rinse cycles (which they all do for energy savings-- that's why it takes like 2 hours for a dishwasher vs 30 min from the old days), for say an average noise rating of 70 decibels which gets put on the sticker and the box / website, but when the damn thing is not soaking, and actually making noise, that noise might be 85 decibels, and another one who doesn't do that misleading "average decibel" marketing might be 75 (and also the silent) but then lose our on sales because people just see "70" on the other one. So here, with anchors charts, well this one says poor holding and 50 knots, that one says it holds way more weight but oh, it's 30 knots (and force isn't linear in wind-- logarithmic, I think. something like that. goes up super fast-- same with decibels). Or with the electric motors-- this one says 3hp, but that's not tracking with how many watts of power at the prop for an outboard. Ok, these two match, but then the torque curve of an outboard shows you only get rated horsepower at the high RPMs, and if you want to use half power, you're really at like 1/2 the rated horsepower. Or this one has pulling power of so many pounds thrust, but it changes on different boats, so what should you use, etc.. EP Carry is very "I hate this" on their website and tried hard to refuse to play the game, but recently changed their own software /ratings to up their watts so it looks more equivalent to other people's, since people only care about the sticker on the box/website, and 1hp must be better than 0.5hp and not as good as 3hp.. Yet we all know (well some of us) that prop size also can change your RPMs, and therefore performance / where the torque goes (and so can 3 vs 4 blade), so you need to design a motor/prop setup for your boat and your goals (our dock guy has a unique setup on his work skiff, and he does crazy things with a tiny Yamaha because of it-- it's set for gear moving, dragging).
My first post ever on this site was saying "I saw my first C-Dory and the floor was squishy, and my sh*tty moisture meter said it was wet" and got SLAMMED by Bob and others for not knowing enough about moisture meters. We were both right, in that for me I didn't want a project (newborn at home), and that I had no idea a dry feeling boat could have moisture on it, etc.. So I read the Pascoe articles linked, got a book, and learned how little I knew-- I didn't close those gaps, but now my mental table of contents is much larger with more chapters I need to fill in. And there will be more chapters added to the "things Dave knows about with boating", presently perhaps in bold in your own book, and I'm looking to fill them in 80/20 along the way (what 20% of inputs yield 80% of outputs; Pareto). My wife says my "20" is way more than most people's 80, but that's just how I was raised and how my brain works. "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, yet wiser men so full of doubt" (-george Bernard shaw). That's been a personal motto since 6th grade when I first read that. Tying back to the first post, and adding things I saw Bob write elsewhere, one goal of this forum is to promote healthy, intelligent, discourse for people, on the record. I call it "leaving it here for posterity", and so if anyone like me comes along behind, I want to leave some bread crumbs they can follow if they desire. Sadly, too many people (self included) are internet-first, and don't consider books as valuable-- "just look it up" or "just ask Claude/ChatGPT/Gemini/Grok" etc., but they're taught on the internet (and ugh, Reddit), so if it's not here, but might be in 5 obvious-to-buy books, people won't know. So, my thread went deep to hopefully get people thinking and talking, and to leave the breadcrumbs I got offline for people to follow online. (Someone even told me-- I haven't verified-- that the Rocna people, earlier in their life as a company, trolled the forums and smeared other people and brands, and basically made every thread anywhere that mentioned anchors, seem like if it wasn't a Rocna, it was inferior garbage while then doing some of the same things they made fun of others for!)
The knife-in-hand, engines-running is something I learned here from you and Bob, too. Hadn't seen that one yet, nor taken time to 'ponder' what would dragging in a storm actually look/sound like. I totally get it, at least conceptually, which helps me better understand the "sometimes you're better off at sea in the storm than at anchor". Thank you for sharing it (both of you). And thanks for the Boss recommendation.
I still need to find a main anchor now. I was so set on the Spade, that now when I go back to my runner up, the Mantus 1 (for which the $100 off sale ended Sunday, obviously-- "dear diary, screwed again..." lol) just looks huge and funny looking. There are quite a few Spades for sale on FB, but none in my size that are steel (aluminum ones don't do as well, and aren't recommended by the company itself as a primary). I'm going to look more closely at the Mantus M2 Performance (the improved but not tested by Panope) and the Vulcan again, and then at photos of Brats' boats who have them. I saw one with a 20lb Vulcan, painted yellow, and it looked like the boat had cauliflower ear on its bow. But the chart shows that's probably the right size, especially with less scope in crowded places near me, like Newport, Block Island, Camden, etc.. (the touristy places, sure, but sometimes when you're a tourist, or host of one, you want to go to touristy places). I'll also look back into what a Viking 10 costs to have imported, and how long that would take, as it's seemingly the best overall anchor on the market right now (but I don't need the best-- "you pays your money...")), but really don't want a rollbar for aesthetics and seaweed.
www.landfallnavigation.com
