Best anchor types for varied cruising

Rupert Holmes on choosing the best anchor for your boat, your style of cruising, how you’ll use it and your budget

Today we are fortunate to have anchor designs that are much more effective than those of only a few decades ago. Nevertheless, anchor choice is still one of the most heated discussions online and there are a bewildering number of options available, at a staggering range of prices. When researching this article I found anchors described as being suitable for a 32ft boat, for instance, at prices ranging from only £80 to more than £1,000.

There are many different competing factors to consider when choosing an anchor for different types of cruising. This means a type and size that might be ideal for one owner may well be less suitable for another with a similar boat, but who uses it very differently.

Anchor types

Until 20 to 30 years ago there were primarily three different styles of anchor in common use aboard yachts and motorboats under 50ft-the CQR/plough, Bruce/claw and Danforth. As a result, the bulk of second-hand yachts are still equipped with their original anchors.

It would be nice to think that, if this equipment appears to have worked well for so long, it must be perfectly suited to the vessel. However, that's far from automatically the case.

The later years of the 20th century and early part of the 21st saw an accelerating change in anchor design, creating products that are far more reliable than the earlier designs. Unsurprisingly, the new designs were more expensive, so were rarely fitted as standard to new boats.

My own experience of these over the past five to 10 years, with the original Rocna and the Lewmar Epsilon, is that they set far more easily than a plough or claw-type anchor, bedding into the seabed both faster and more firmly.