New Generation Anchor

[ebb]

Here are a few observations off the top:
Looks like P.S. photographed most of the hooks they used in their test for the article. It's amazing how the smooth silvery computer enhancements in the catalogs washed right off.

Rex's SARCA came away very well indeed and should lead to a change in the name to
SARAMCA. (sand and rock and mud combo anchor) Maybe somebody knows what percentage of mud anchoring there is in american waters. It makes this anchor imco look like real choice bower for the Ariel. Three anchors for the price of one (dividing its cost by 3) makes its expense a little easier to bear! Yes? It doesn't depend on weight for it to work. It looks, at the moment, like an ideal and versatile small cruiser hook.

A letter writer in the same issue quotes L. Francis Herreshoff (paraphase):
'The human race took millennia to develop a plow design that could be pulled easily through the earth, and some damned fool made an anchor of it.'
Referring to the CQR, which has faired rather badly in other testing. P.S. included a knockoff Kingston Plow in this group. It also dragged. But it is not clear if it ended up on its side when buried in the mud or stayed upright as we are to assume the HydroBubble does.

Danforth style anchors aside, nearly all of the rest fall into two groups. Ones with 'spoon' shaped blades, and the others with 'plow' shapes. This is a misnomer. Rocna literature also misnames their rival SARCA as a plow. But, excuse me, plow is the Kingston, the Davis Talon and the HydroBubble.
The mildly concave blade of the SARCA with its down pointing entry doesn't make it a plow. It's designed to dig in and down when pulled, while the heavy CQR (for example) is meant to part the earth and make a furrow. And this might be happening under steady pull at shorter angles with other plow shaped blades in mud.

In mud the spoons did not perform as well, especially in the 3:1 scope set and hold comparisons. Talking into my hat, I think the SuperMax, Rocna may have lifted off their set and had a ball of mud in their blade like we hear the Bruce has trouble with. What do you think?
The Hydro is a lightweight plow that keeps its blade at the correct attitude. Wonder how this anchor would perform in deeper water where its weight would be more neutral. IE there is something to be said for a heavy weight anchor you can be sure has a better chance digging in.

The all stainless XYZ. I would also call (like SARCA) a technical anchor. Its superb performance in mud means to me that it dives when pulled. I assume that the SARCA behaves similarly. It's not clear that XYZ will do that in or on other bottoms.

What are your conclusions? I will shy away from the distinct plow shapes AND most spoon shaped blades as I get closer to getting the ground gear together for 338.