A good nights rest

I have to admit I have lost count of how many consecutive days So It Goes has been at anchor...At Least a year by my addled reckoning and all of it sitting on a Brittany Anchor which just may be one of the best bargains going in the whole stuff for boats shuck and jive world . The Brittany is cheap ( down here in St Martin I think I paid $95 dollars for a 14 KG ( 36LB) for this one and I see the current price is all of $129 ( but as Budget marine discounts all of their prices so no one ever pays that...

Every couple of years someone comes out with a new hipper sexier anchor...always with claims of greater holding power and almost always with attacks on the other existing products...In the business of anchor sales it is certainly a shark infested and dog eat dog world where most folks don't quite get the concept of playing nice.

Boy do they pimp these suckers...One of my favorite videos in the anchor sales department is them showing how well their new and hip anchor works by tying it to the back of a car and dragging it across a beach from the parking lot...Impressive and next time I want to anchor my SUV in a parking lot next to a beach I just may think about getting one ( Well NOT as can you believe they want $600 and change for a 33# anchor?) Having lived on the hook for years I have yet to find an anchor test by anyone that makes any real sense in duplicating how anchors work and the stresses and strains that our boats put on them. I keep waiting for some new hip anchor to have a test where they throw it out of a moving car at 60MPH...make as much sense as the parking lot test but a WHOLE lot more fun to watch!

I should add that in a couple of year the new hipper and sexy anchor will most likely be mostly forgotten and mostly found at nautical garage sales being sold for pennies on the dollar while old rusty CQR's still get bought up for more than they are worth.

But back to the Brittany...One of the reasons we use it is it works. Every night I can go to bed with the expectation that I will wake up in the same place come morning. When I am off running errands in the dinghy I don't feel the need to run back to the boat every time the wind pipes up a few knots because the boat might decide to head off for The Spanish Main all by itself without me.

Of course there is the whole "It's Not The Meat It's The Motion" thing ( one of my all time favorite songs) and a lot depends on things like bottom, scope, chain/rode and whether it was a smart place to anchor that gives one a good nights sleep the anchor but more on that later...