As keeping your boat securely connected to the bottom is really important for the safety and well being of all distance cruisers, an ongoing discussion of issues about gear and technique can be very helpful. Ground tackle has been dramatically improving over the past few years, and as a result techniques for deploying that tackle have been modified.

This is a great place for members to share their experience with newer anchors and related gear, tricky anchorages, and tips for effective technique.

And if you have a great story to tell, please share it. We all know that anchoring is a spectator sport, and we all love a good story.

Vice Commodore, OCC 

Hi Alex,
My take on your comments pertaining to the individual who is primary on the ACC site, OCC member John Harries, is that any relationship with Spade anchors plays no part in the concerns he writes about. I have followed his writings for years and have never found his judgments to be influenced in the way you describe and I find the implication of personal bias and implied vendetta (“driven” rather than he is responding to accumulated data) uncomfortable to hear, especially as it reflects on me as having brought it to the membership’s attention.
The anecdotal concerns were brought to a head by the Panope video I cited and he referred to. Alex, have you read the thread I referred to on ACC where these concerns are addressed and responded to by a large number of experienced cruisers and where first hand reports of re-setting failures by Rocna are described? Or looked at the videos compiled over the years by the Panope site? You did not report doing so in your recent comments I would be interested in your take as you are quite experienced in this area and far better read on the various tests conducted. Most tests I am familiar with have so many limitations as to make them almost useless (or misleading): the Panope videos being the exception as they show the anchors in action.
I report this to the membership as a warning that is documented in places I trust: not to start a disagreement. Everyone should evaluate all the data available in their choice of anchors. I agree with you as I also believe that cruisers should have one of the new generation anchors. They are just far superior. A Rocna, even with this emerging proclivity, is still far better anchor than a CQR or Delta or Bruce. But there is accumulating evidence that, for some new generation anchors, that re-setting is compromised in just the way that Steve/Panope has documented so well on his videos of anchors and their actual behavior on the seabed as well as the ACC site.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy