Good day, again.
I thought I ought to clarify my comment on not liking trip release. My reasoning is, basically I do not need one. My understanding from the literature is that trip release will only work if you intentionally try to trip them, which I think means you need to shorten the scope up, my belief is its a boat and in theory it should work in practice but in practice there might be something wrong with the thoery. But having said that I live in the land of SARCA and have never heard of anyone accidentally tripping his SARCA (and there would a most vociferous lobby if this was a real problem, Australians can be just as vocal as people on, say, the Trawler Forum!). I have tried 'testing' the trip release of a SARCA, small SARCA, bigger boat - but that might not be the same as using it, night after night.
I confess that we use a gal SARCA Excel, a completely different design and not to be confused with the Super SARCA. Its the best thing since the chartplotter (to get away from simple things like sliced bread). I am sure there are anchors that are as good - but here, with our supply base I would not change it. But never say never, new designs come out, old ones are revamped and if I find a better one I'll change. The cost of an anchor is simply insignificant given its benefits, a $1,000 anchor over a couple of years works out at $1-$2 a night - seems cheap security to me. Though why anyone would spend the same sort of money for an anchor that has only half the holding capacity or collects mud or needs major modification to fit the bow roller or is made by people with dubious backgrounds beggars belief. Equally how people can be so critical of a design they have never used, or even seen, and simultaneously professing to be experts might raise questions over their affiliations. The Excel works in all the seabed types we encounter, sand, mud, medium weed (cannot cope with kelp) gravel and rubbly bottoms and it comes up clean. It copes with a change of setting direction, whether 90 or 180 degrees. It also fits our bow roller, without modification and I suspect will fit any normal bow roller. We cruise down Tasmania's west coast, which can be character building at times. I could equally be praiseworthy of the Spade, but its not available here, is very expensive wherever it is available and does not have the Excel's high strength shank. I'm sorry the Excel is not available to those of you in N America, or Europe - no wonder they call Australia the lucky country! - must be really galling for those in another of the ex-colonies.
And I have no affiliations or interest in Anchor Right, Spade (except to support their successful products) nor any other anchor maker.
Have a great day!