WASI Anchor

[noelex 77]

There were some silly accusations flying around in the days when Alain Poiraud, the designer of the Spade and Peter Smith the son of the designer of the Rocna were having an all out war intelligent respectful discussion on CF.

The Spade and Rocna are completely different designs. The share almost nothing in common and I cannot see any any possibility of patent infringement if Rocna had left off the roll bar and produced something like the Manson Boss.

However, Spade's patents have stopped other designers producing a similar anchor. Other designs utilising the combination of a heavily ballasted tip concave blade and hollow shank have not been produced primarily due to patent infringement problems.

The Ultra anchor has recently changed this. Its not clear how Ultra have avoided the patents filed by Spade, but I think we will see many more designs of this sort when Spades patents expire very shortly.
This promises both cheaper copies of the very successful Spade and a development of the design.

This is one reason why the Ultra is such an interesting anchor. Is it a copy, maybe with some unwelcome changes to avoid the patent infringement, or a successful development?

[noelex 77]

I was interested to see this table.
New Generation Anchors

It is produced by the designers of the Spade anchor, so naturally rates the two anchors they produce (Spade and Sword) with the highest marks.

They rate the diving ability of anchors separately and give the roll bar anchors the highest marks for diving ability (other than their own designs).
They even rate Rocna and MS only one point behind their own Spade (9/10 instead of 10/10) in terms of diving ability.

I hope this helps dispel the silly notion that the roll bar anchors are not diving anchors.

[congo]

Crikey Noelex,

I think putting up a chart stating (Figures are theoretical & not based on scientific testing) is just as silly to try and prove that you are right, and every body including actual testing of the mentioned brands are wrong, maybe you should do some more diving.

Regards Rex.

CEO of Anchor Right Australia.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

I was interested to see this table.
New Generation Anchors

It is produced by the designers of the Spade anchor, so naturally rates the two anchors they produce (Spade and Sword) with the highest marks.

They rate the diving ability of anchors separately and give the roll bar anchors the highest marks for diving ability (other than their own designs).
They even rate Rocna and MS only one point behind their own Spade (9/10 instead of 10/10) in terms of diving ability.

I hope this helps dispel the silly notion that the roll bar anchors are not diving anchors.

The hoop on a 20 kg Rocna has a cross sectional area of around 30 square inches, oriented perpendicular to the direction of diving. To argue that this 'backboard' has no effect on the ability of the anchor to bury itself is compared to the same design without the backboard is, well, silly.

If you define a 'diving anchor' as one that will, in some seabeds, bury itself to the top of the hoop, then a Rocna is a diving anchor. If you define it as an anchor specifically designed to dive in almost all seabeds and which presents limited resistance to diving, then the Rocna is not a diving anchor. But if you want to call your Rocna, which is a great anchor, a diving anchor, feel free.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by bobconnie

If all you guys want is depth of set, go back to a real Danforth ! Nothing go's deeper, or sets harder! And if the wind don't go 180 on ya you will never move !! All a fortress is, is an aluminum danforth! it's just lighter for a given size, which I cant see as a good thing ! LOL (heavy is better lol) Of course Im old and have hung in some pretty big blows, and never had my well set danforth move !! Just my 2 cents

Well, your two cents are echoed by the US Coast Guard, who uses the Fortress because in their tests (the Navy tests everything before purchasing), the Fortress dug in and held the best of all designs. They had to recently abandon one here in the PNW that had dug itself so deeply into the seabed after 3 days in a blow that they couldn't retrieve it. If you look at the windlass on a 100' cutter you'd have to grant that anchor must have been dug in pretty deep. Kind of like the Ultra in the tsunami described above.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by colemj

The possible failure mode would be deep weeds, where the hoop anchor holds the boat, but the weed roots fail and the whole thing unseats. It is hypothetically plausible that a non-hoop anchor may have dug down below the weed roots before holding the boat.

But that is an extreme and rare example.

Mark

Extreme and rare examples are what keeps sailors in extreme anchoring situations awake at night.

The reality is that anchoring on chain with a proper snub line results in easily manageable forces for any well set 3rd generation anchor to handle, even in storm force winds. The only time a hoop anchor gets into trouble is when the hoop piles crud up against the hoop, shifting the weight balance to the back of the anchor, resulting in it dragging. 99.9% of the time it matters not at all.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure the reason for the hoop is because a concave anchor without a roll bar is perfectly stable upside down (kind of like a multihull) if the sea bed is soft enough that the shank sinks in. The hoop helps roll the anchor to its side so the tip can orient itself correctly.

[congo]

Delfin QUOTED. [Extreme and rare examples are what keeps sailors in extreme anchoring situations awake at night.

The reality is that anchoring on chain with a proper snub line results in easily manageable forces for any well set 3rd generation anchor to handle, even in storm force winds. The only time a hoop anchor gets into trouble is when the hoop piles crud up against the hoop, shifting the weight balance to the back of the anchor, resulting in it dragging. 99.9% of the time it matters not at all.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure the reason for the hoop is because a concave anchor without a roll bar is perfectly stable upside down (kind of like a multihull) if the sea bed is soft enough that the shank sinks in. The hoop helps roll the anchor to its side so the tip can orient itself correctly.

You are Excactely right Delfin with your above quote, the hoop on the Super Sarca can also restrict deep penetration in weed,roots,with an exception, all testers have found the Super Sarca because of it being convex pushing the clutter to one side and the positioning of the roll bar it handles these situations by approx 35% better than a concave roll bar design.

The Excel on the other hand with its cutting edges, (no roll bar) a deep throat opening and deep diving capabilty similar to Ultra handles clutter, weed, roots by a country mile over any roll bar design.

Regards Rex.

CEO of Anchor Right Australia.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Delfin

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure the reason for the hoop is because a concave anchor without a roll bar is perfectly stable upside down (kind of like a multihull) if the sea bed is soft enough that the shank sinks in. The hoop helps roll the anchor to its side so the tip can orient itself correctly.

Unless that anchor has a weighted tip - then no roll bar is needed.

But that violates Spade's patents - thus my point in the previous post.

Mark

[colemj]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

The Spade and Rocna are completely different designs. The share almost nothing in common and I cannot see any any possibility of patent infringement if Rocna had left off the roll bar and produced something like the Manson Boss.

See my post above this.

Manson didn't even produce the Boss until many years after their roll bar Supreme.

So yes, Rocna could have produced the Boss, but it didn't occur to them at the time. Instead, they were focused on producing a fixed shank, self launching, concave anchor and came up against Spade's patents.

Thus, the roll bar.

Mark

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by colemj

Unless that anchor has a weighted tip - then no roll bar is needed.

But that violates Spade's patents - thus my point in the previous post.

Mark

I'm not so sure about the patent comment. The Ultra, as near as I can tell, is a slightly improved Spade, as the few tests available would seem to confirm. It has been around long enough that if the Spade patents were a problem, one would think they would have been challenged by Spade. I've been through the patent process three times now, and when running up against prior art, you need to convince the examiner that your art is different enough to warrant separate protection. Or, if arguing in court, you have to convince the judge that the copy you are complaining about is too close to avoid conflict with your prior art. I can't see much difference between the design of the Ultra and the design of the Spade, so either Spade doesn't care, or they felt it was too expensive to contest Ultra over a patent violation.

[salticrak]

For a someone who does not know his elbow from his ^&) as far as anchors go i find all this very interesting, keep it civil fellas.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Delfin

I'm not so sure about the patent comment. The Ultra, as near as I can tell, is a slightly improved Spade, as the few tests available would seem to confirm. It has been around long enough that if the Spade patents were a problem, one would think they would have been challenged by Spade. I've been through the patent process three times now, and when running up against prior art, you need to convince the examiner that your art is different enough to warrant separate protection. Or, if arguing in court, you have to convince the judge that the copy you are complaining about is too close to avoid conflict with your prior art. I can't see much difference between the design of the Ultra and the design of the Spade, so either Spade doesn't care, or they felt it was too expensive to contest Ultra over a patent violation.

Again, I am just relating what the inventors of the spade and rocna themselves said about patents and the roll bar. There was also a patent issue with the small "ears" on the side of the fluke - in which spade was unsuccessful in defending that one, so rocna has them.

As for not "looking" anything alike, note that the entire point of contention between them was the concave design. In that area, they functionally look exactly alike.

As for the ultra, I don't know. They came out with that anchor right at a time when the owner of spade sold the company and the new company went dormant for a long period of time. Perhaps it was a matter of not being worth the time and money to pursue, since the Ultra was only a SS model that costs far more than the Spade, so had a more limited or different market.

The inventor of the spade was not interested in the money or business as much as he was in his engineering reputation and rights. So he was willing to pursue his patents with rocna regardless of business sense. When he sold his company, it is possible that they thought differently about the ultra.

Similarly, Manson came out with a direct copy of the Rocna and, while much bad blood was spilled, it must have been considered too expensive to pursue.

Or maybe the spade patent expired - it came out in 1994, or somewhere close. I don't know anything about patent law, so don't know when it would expire.

Again, there is a long history of the parties immediately involved with these anchors telling this story - it is not mine, I am only relating it.

Mark