Sure, it was the local WM and I will state up front that they did not in anyway misrepresent the anchors they had in the store. But when you are standing there looking at a Rocna on the shelf for $499 and a traditional Danforth for around $100, you are bound to say to yourself, why am I spending an extra $400?
What bothers me was that I got sucked into the lower price anchor just like everyone else. There where two on the shelf when I came in. People were coming into the store pretty regular and with the Danny approaching NC they were looking for ground tackle and lines. A fella walked in, grabbed one of the traditional anchors and then there was only 1, so I grabbed one also.
I went in with the intention of replacing my Old High Tensile Strength Danforth with a newer and next size up. But you cannot do that, without a 4 week wait. The reason is that they just don't sell that many HT Danforths, there is no demand (I am sure there is a chicken and egg problem here) so they don't stock them and they take a long time to get.
But if you could do an in store comparison (and you can if you ask and look on the internet, etc) you would see that the HT Danforth is more like $350 not $100 and so the difference in price between it and a heavier Rocna is not that much.
Anyway all of this bothered me driving home and so early this morning I called the store and told them to hold the Rocna (it is a #15 the 33 lb anchor which is more anchor than the 20 H Danforth that I am replacing) and they said sure no problem and where very interested to listen to my minor complaint.
I also bought 50' of new 5/16 chain and 150' of 5/8" rode as my intention is to make this my primary anchor and have the old Danforth and the CQR as backups or alternates.
I have an windlass that is several years old and I was not sure which chain to get. There is a difference in the link size between BBB, G4 and High Tensile strength. But fortunately my old chain is stamped with a '3B' presumably standing for BBB and that is the same size as the G4 I purchased.
I bought a thimble with the line and so this morning I did my first ever eye splice. The hard part for me was trying to keep the strands twisted as I passed them over and under. After I was done I took them to sail maker who does splicing and whipping and he said for a first try it was not bad, just too long.
That was not a problem. I had him add whipping to the thimble and at the finish of the splice and the bitter end. He said that actually it is better to let the strands go flat when you make the splice as that provides a better grip on those strands as the splice tightens down.
His feeling on anchors was that good anchors are more useful than even your engine. You can always drop it and wait out a situation or use it to pull you off a grounding because if it sets well, you are pulling on something that is really solid. He has 5 anchors on his boat and all are ready to go.
I did not plan to buy the Rocna, but given all that I have read about them on this forum I am happy with this decision. One question I had for WM was if I used it and was not happy with it would they take it back. They said that is entirely up to Rocna, so there is a question for Craig.
cheers
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