Andrew Prentice taking delivery of his 88kg stainless Excel anchors for his Outer Reef Super Yacht, ‘Aroona’.
My new Outer Reef 70 motor yacht, ‘Aroona’, is currently being built in Taiwan, to be put into charter in Cairns, far North Queensland in August 2010. When it came to sourcing the anchors for ‘Aroona’, I wanted anchors that would work extremely well in various conditions and would also compliment the stylish features of my new motor yacht.
I had specific needs for the anchor as Aroona is being built to comply with Queensland certificate of the survey, Class 2B. She required 2x 88 KG super high holding anchors with modern new generation performance. The aesthetics also had to be in keeping with the quality of the vessel and a super high holding power certificate was essential.
I began researching the many new generation anchor designs that have created some controversy over the last two years. This was not an easy task as most new designs claim that their anchors are the best, and I had to make the right choice for me. During my research I spent hours at boat shows and on the Web reading as many reviews as I could. I discovered the SARCA Excel from Anchor Right Australia. The reviews from many boaties currently using the Super SARCA and SARCA Excel read very well. Once I had found a design that appealed to me I had to find out how the SARCA Excel performed against the claims of the companies I had already researched?
To cut a long story short, I made up my mind to go with Anchor Rights SARCA Excel for the following reasons. Anchor Right has been in business here in Australia for approx fifteen years, have an excellent reputation, and they design their own anchors and don’t copy others. Most importantly the best anchor test reviews come from the boaties that were using these anchors regularly. Anchor Right has been praised by many customers that have been in the thick of it and had to rely on their SARCA anchor.
Anchor Right has just been through a strict and stringent set of rules recently applied by the N.M.S.C. (National Marine Safety Committee) for anchors built under survey. This was a very convincing factor. Anchor Right has many test certificates which made it easy for me. On request they provided all testing on the Excel from proof load to field testing as well as allowing me a full visual of other anchors tested to destruction for proof testing. Many of these anchors were not yielding even after four times the load required for approval. All of these tests are independent conducted by Robertson, an anchor testing Authority. Robertson was given the thumbs up by the N.M.S.C. to test anchors under their recent new standards for testing anchors and ropes.
So after ticking all the boxes the next question was could we get 2 stainless steel 88 KG SARCA Excel anchors from Anchor Right built before the container with all the accessories for the boat, left for Taiwan. I made this request to Rex Francis the Managing Director of Anchor Right and the designer of all of their products. Rex said it would be difficult given the tight timeframe and his workload leading up to Christmas but he would give it a go. What followed was impressive to say the least and he had the anchors built in less than six weeks ready to be shipped well within my timeframe. Anchor Right in that time produced, proof tested and delivered my request. It was commendable to say the least.
It was also great to be able to purchase a home grown product here in Australia that is as good as, if not better than anchors made anywhere else in the world.
Outer Reef’s Australian manager , Andrew Coffey, will be suggesting to his customers that they check out Anchor Right before fitting any other anchor design to there motor yacht in future.
All Anchor Right Products are stamped with I.D and patented for world wide distribution giving the customer peace of mind they are not purchasing a copy. (Oh! one complaint, the anchors came in at 89 kgs each!)
Andrew Prentice
Aroona Luxury Yacht Charters
For more info visit their web site www.anchorright.com.au
