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Members' Online Book: Anchoring Made Easy—Gear, Chapter 4 of 19

SPADE, SARCA Excel, or Some Other Anchor?

John Published Apr 9, 2019 24 comments

Here at AAC we have been writing about anchoring and anchors for some 15 years, as well as reading and answering thousands of related comments. And, between Colin and I, we have a good century of anchoring experience in every substrate type and circumstance imaginable.

We applied all of that experience to our anchor reviews of SPADE and SARCA Excel (last two chapters). But that leaves two questions:

Are there other anchors as good or better than the SPADE or SARCA Excel?
Which is better, the SPADE or the SARCA Excel?To continue reading, please login (top right) or join us.

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Specifying Primary Anchor Size >>

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Meet the Author

John

John was born and brought up in Bermuda and started sailing as a child, racing locally and offshore before turning to cruising. He has sailed over 100,000 miles, most of it on his McCurdy & Rhodes 56, Morgan's Cloud, including eight ocean races to Bermuda, culminating in winning his class twice in the Newport Bermuda Race. He has skippered a series of voyages in the North Atlantic, the majority of which have been to the high latitudes. John has been helping others go voyaging by sharing his experience for twenty years, first in yachting magazines and, for the last 12 years, as co-editor/publisher of AAC.

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Nothing on this website or in direct communications received from us, or in our articles in the media, should be construed to mean or imply that offshore voyaging is anything other than potentially hazardous. Dangers such as, but not limited to, extreme weather, cold, ice, lack of help or assistance, gear failure, grounding, and falling overboard could injure or kill you and wreck your boat.

Decisions such as, but not limited to, heading offshore, where you go, and how you equip your boat, are yours and yours alone. The information on this web site is based on what has worked for the authors in the past, but that does not mean it will work for you, or that it is the best, or even a good way for you to do things.