Greenland, Land of Ice and Light (John)
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
We have just uploaded a gallery of a few of my photographs of Greenland taken over the course of six visits by sailboat in the last 12 years. In putting the gallery together I have tried to choose images that convey the unique nature of this special place and my love for, and awe of, it. We are planning to add more photographs of the northern high latitudes over the next few months.
By the way, we have wanted to do this photo gallery project for quite some time, but have been deterred by the amount of time involved in putting together and maintaining a meaningful gallery. That changed with our recent purchase of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, a very cool product that streamlines the whole process from image capture or film scan to upload of the final gallery. I would highly recommend Lightroom to any serious photographer.
Labels: Rants and Musings
Equal Time for Rocna (John)
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
A couple of weeks ago we received a comment from Alain Poiraud, designer of the SPADE anchor, which we posted; a few days after that we received an email from Craig Smith, of Rocna, which, in the interest of fairness and balance, we are posting below. Craig, while not the designer of the Rocna, was involved in the process and all the testing, and is clearly very knowledgeable about anchors.
I just want to emphasize that we are not setting ourselves up as arbitrators of a best anchor battle between SPADE and Rocna; however, several resources are mentioned that may help you choose between these two fine anchors. I would also restate that we are skeptical of reading too much into anchor tests, particularly between two great performers like the SPADE and Rocna.
As we have said before, for us the important points to be taken from all of this and our own experience with the SPADE are:
- The SPADE and Rocna blow old style anchors like the CQR and Bruce out of the water, so to speak. To put it quite simply, changing to one of these anchors will change your cruising life, it certainly has ours.
- Alain and Peter (designer of the Rocna) are two real voyaging sailors who have used their smarts and experience to move the state of the art a huge step forward. Both SPADE and Rocna are proud of, and aggressively promote and defend, their respective brain children. In my opinion, that is as it should be and is nothing to criticize either of them for.
- It would be a mistake to ignore what these guys have to say, just because they are promoting their own products. The very fact that they were able to come up with dramatically better anchor designs shows that both companies know a heck of a lot more about anchors than the rest of us.
I did think about editing Craig’s comment a bit because he takes a couple of swipes at Alain, but in the end decided that since we published Alain’s comment in its entirety, we should do the same here.
Craig’s CommentJust a quick note in response to your recent blog entry. I see Alain Poiraud’s anti-competitor campaign has reached you – almost inevitable for any website which dare mention the Rocna.
It amazes us too that “people are still passionately defending older anchor designs”; as you might imagine education is the primary component of our marketing – however,
Poiraud’s style is very confrontational. I wanted to briefly address a few of Poiraud’s points.
I won’t harass you with claims and counter-claims, but since last year’s West Marine / SAIL anchor testing was mentioned, here’s some more commentary for you. (The write-ups are on our website by the way – both SAIL and Yachting Monthly – under “independent reviews”). 
Rocna’s “modified curve” is above, which is simply a version of the original from SAIL, adjusted for each anchor to be compared on a size-for-size basis, as there is quite a range of sizes in the testing. Not to mention the Spade of 35lb vs the smaller Rocna 32lb. (Even the raw chart shows some interesting discrepancies in averaged “max before releasing”, don’t you think?)[The chart above was adjusted by Rocna based on the orginal SAIL Magazine chart, which you can see on the third page of this PDF.]
We agree with your comments concerning the requirement to perform well consistently in all bottoms. Commensurate with that however is the requirement to perform consistently on a consistent bottom, if that makes sense.
The West Marine testing does only cover sand, but it is hard sand, which separates the men from the boys, so-to-speak, in terms of setting ability, and is the reason the older anchors are shown in such a harsh light (a result you will concur is realistic, I am sure).
Anyway, of arguably more definition is the comments from West Marine themselves. In their 2007 catalog is a page about the testing, and this is a table of their comments on the overall thing:
[Craig included a table from the 2007 West Marine catalog page 221. The relevant entries are:]
- Rocna 15, Steel, 32 lb. Superb, consistent performance. Held a minimum of 4,500lb and engaged immediately.
- Spade S80, Steel & lead, 34.4 lb Somewhat mixed results with three OK pulls, and three maximum pulls. Set immediately each time.
So there you have it, read both posts and make your own decision. I think you will be very happy with either anchor.For me, I'm going to write about something other than anchoring for a while!
Labels: Anchoring
Comment of The Month (John)
posted by John & Phyllis
Web Site
We got the comment below from Alain Poiraud, designer of the SPADE anchor, on our Rocna versus SPADE post, now archived on our web site. In that post I said: “In looking at the Rocna, its basic fluke design is very similar to the SPADE and I would expect it to be at least as good.” and “the Rocna seems to have scored a bit better on recent tests by SAIL Magazine and West Marine, although I should say that I’m not a big believer in anchor tests.”
Alain, quite rightly, took me to task on these two statements. I just did not have enough information to say “at least” and my reference to the test was particularly out of line since I’m very skeptical of tests anyway (at least I said that) for several reasons, the most important being that the first thing that testers look for is a consistent bottom, but what separates a good anchor from a poor one is its performance in inconsistent sea floors like rocks, kelp, hard sand, and a mix of all three.
We have deleted the words “at least” and the entire reference to tests in the archived post.
However, there is one thing that can and should be learned from these recent tests: new generation anchors like the Rocna and SPADE are a huge improvement over older designs like the CQR and Claw (Bruce). The CQR has repeatedly shown terrible problems setting in anything but thick mud—this I already knew from bitter personal experience—and the Bruce, while generally setting better than the CQR, has exhibited poor holding and a very worrying inability to reset when it does drag.
It amazes me that even 10 years or so after the introduction of the SPADE people are still passionately defending older anchor designs, and even being downright offensive about it to people like Alain who, after all, revolutionized anchor design and in doing so made cruising safer and more fun for all of us; or at least those of us who are willing to give these new anchors a try.
Obviously, Alain is partial to his brain child as can be seen in his comment. I have no opinion one way or another on his assertions, other than to say that the SPADE is a great anchor that has made a huge difference to Phyllis’ and my enjoyment of cruising.
One final thing. We have received no money or preferred treatment from Alain or SPADE, not even a discount—Alain, you cheapskate! (JA*)
Alain’s Comment:
I’m not too surprised to read your comments about the Rocna score on SAIL magazine.. as Rocna has pasted on every nautical forums, the same ADVERTISING and the same Rocna’s MODIFIED CURVE showing that the Rocna anchor was by far the first on the test.
But I strongly engage you, and any readers of this post, to carefully read the three reports made of this test (Sail, Yachting Monthly and Power and Motor Yacht (http://powerandmotoryacht.com/gearreview/boat-anchor-test/index5.aspx).
In none of the three magazines, the Rocna has been reported “First” --in fact, the Rocna has always been behind the Spade. Further more, it should be noted that the Rocna tested was much bigger that the Spade (1030 sq cm for the Rocna compared to only 800 sq cm for the Spade.)
* Joke alert.
