Anyone care to share some advice on what anchor to go for? Sort, size, weight?
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Rah Ro!
Asking for anchor recommendations creates much Internet Angst and Debate!.
Over on Cruising Forum, there have been two very long, and very good, discussions about anchors. A couple, Noelex77 and SeaWorthyLass, at the time they were in the Med, started taking photos of anchors "set" by boats near them and posting on CF. This led to some interesting conversations. Panope started testing anchors back in 2015 and videoing how the anchors behaved. His discussion, which continues, is here,
https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f118/videos-of-anchors-setting-155412.html.
His first post links to the discussion by Noelex77 and SeaWorthyLass.
It will take quite a bit of time to read all of the posts though.
If you are not a member of the Morgan's Cloud website, I would encourage you do join, it is an inexpensive membership and is a treasure trove of information. Though it is focused on sailboats there is much good information on the site, such as maintaining an aluminum boat and anchors.
The Morgan's Cloud anchoring "book" is here,
https://www.morganscloud.com/category/anchoring-mooring/online-book-anchoring/ The Morgan's Cloud(John) discussion does mention/use some of the tests done by Panope that was linked up thread, but John has his own opinions based on living on a boat.
The Dashews books are available for free,
https://setsail.com/free-books/. While some of the information is dated, and their anchor advice might have evolved since the books were written, it is still good information.
I believe that Dashew and Morgan's Cloud recommend looking at a given brand's size chart and then getting the next larger size, or two, from what the chart indicates.
John at Morgan's Cloud provides an answer to your question of which anchor,
https://www.morganscloud.com/2019/04/09/spade-sarca-excel-or-some-other-anchor/ His answer is Spade but one should read why that is his answer.
Later,
Dan