The past 2 days have been windy cold and miserable here in Annapolis. The boat show finished with great weather through the whole 5 days of the show. Now it seems like winter has set in!!! Brrr!

We are anchored in a little creek and getting a chance to test out our anchors in the soft Chesapeake Bay mud. When we were here last year we had trouble in the mud - the only time we had trouble with our Delta 44 (20kg) in the 3 years we have had one. The Delta slipped 4 times in a number of Chesapeake anchorages. I think it is a good anchor but perhaps would have to be bigger for the Southerly 42. At any rate we took the opportunity to re-evaluate anchors and decided to try out the Rocna. We got it in Moorhead City and have now sailed with it for one year, anchoring throughout the Caribbean and Bahamas. It has performed consistently well from sand to grass and some mud. Now we are back in the Chesapeake Mud that was a problem last year.

Rocna 25kg on the right - note scoop shape and large surface area.

So how did it do? The short answer is ... Excellent!

First of all, the Rocna is a 25kg anchor so it’s heavier than the Delta we replaced. I very much admire Rocna for standing up and saying they recommend a heavier anchor. The Rocna people have actually sailed and anchored and know you need a serious dependable anchor on the bow of a cruising boat. Most other anchors seem to recommend smaller lighter anchors but in small print they say it is for winds up to 25-30 knots - basically a day anchor/lunch hook. I think our anchor is probably our most important insurance!

I can’t say why exactly but the Rocna seems to have conquered the gooey Bay Mud. It has never slipped here as we have tested it in a few anchorages. The toughest test we have tried is anchoring stern to a dock. In this case the Delta had slipped repeatedly. Now in exactly the same place the Rocna has been great. Once set in, it has held many times the force we achieved last year. Overall this is the best anchor we have tried and are happy to be putting one on the new Southerly 49. We are moving up to a 33kg (73 pound) version.

Here’s a shot of the Rocna 25 on our Southerly 42 in the Bahamas this past spring.



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