When it first arrived I realised pretty quickly that it wasn't going to fit nicely in my bow roller without chiseling huge chunks out of my hull. As you can see in the photos, the bow roller on a Tempest doesn't protrude from the stem very far, and the pick of the Rocna 15 comes back at quite an angle - so unless I could work out a way to have it sticking out about a foot or so - it wasn't going to work.
Also I noted that when pulling it up with the chain over the roller, before I could reach through to grab the shank and pull it up while clearing the stem, it had made contact with the stem. This was exacerbated by the fact that this anchor is seriously heavy.
I was so sold on the product after watching the Rocna You Tube video that I persevered and eventually, after much headscratching, found a way to stow it which solves all of the problems - and cost next to nothing. I wound some rope around the pushpit tubes, and added a length to go across between them with some reinforced pipe over it, and the anchor sat very neatly in place as you can see. I added the two red lengths of rope to really lock it in place. It's extremely well locked in place, but undoing two knots (in the red rope) means it's free to let go in about 10 seconds flat.
Also - because it's stowed outside and above the bow roller, when weighing I can now pull in the chain over the roller as normal until the anchor just clears the water - then lean over the front and grab it well before it has chance to damage my stem, invert it, and drop it down over the pipe covered rope.
Have now spent 3 nights on it. All in the recent high winds we've been having. I have a Garmin handheld which I leave running at night with an anchor drag alarm set on it (paranoia from my CQR days has brought this practice on) and it keeps a nice track log which is always interesting to look at in the morning.
Once in hard sand (at Cawsand bay) in about 7 meters. It set instantly. I swam down to it and noted very little disutbance up-wind of it. Looked like it set after about 50cm. Only the tip was in at first. In the morning I had to use the swell to help break it out. The track log on my Garmin showed we'd not dragged a mm, despite clearly having gone right round the anchor a couple of times.
Once was an unknown bottom off Salcombe. Dropped it in 9m. Wind was really going for it all night - and some rain - so didn't fancy the swim to check it out, hence unsure of the bottom. Thick kelp on the anchor when I brought it up next morning might indicate weed on the bottom, but I can't be sure. Anyway - was a bouncy night and wind strong enough that we didn't turn in the tide (was neaps mind you). Again, no movement.
Last time was in 2 meters far up the Salcombe estuary in weed covered mud. Again in very strong wind. And again, zero sign of any dragging whatsoever. Kudos to the young harbour master who spied us hiding up there, and picked her way up the channel to get her £7.90 off us!
So thus far I'm very impressed with this anchor. I might be retiring the anchor alarm very soon.
Only caveat I have is that if the design of this anchor is so great, then why does it need to be heavier than the CQR I had before, to do the same job? Surely if it's so great I could get away with a smaller one... but when it comes down to it my CQR has dragged, and this has not. My CQR sometimes would not set, and this has ALWAYS set instantly (have tried this more than the 3 overnights I've done, due to bad choice on where to drop it).
Here's the pictures:
