Hi there,
My husband, Martin, spoke to you at the Boat Show this year. Last winter we left our boat, Sapphire (47.5) in Rome. We bought a spade anchor from you at the Boat Show and carried it out there ( before the sports goods restrictions by Ryan Air). We spent 6 months cruising down the Italian coast to the windy Aeolian Islands, Sicily, Southern Italy, Corfu, the Ionian Islands, Athens, Evia Channel, Sporades, Lesvos, Samos, Dodecanese and onto Turkey.
We had always anchored “according to the book”, but sometimes, previously, it took a few goes to get it to take. However,our new Spade anchor was a dream to use and we had an easy mind when it came to anchoring.
One day, in Turkey, we had left Sapphire anchored in the bay amongst 6 or 7 other yachts. We went ashore to use the internet and were fairly oblivious to the squall which had pipped up in the bay. Several boats received extensive damage during this weather. When we returned to our rubber dinghy, it was swamped by the large waves which had broken on the previously quiet shore. All the other boats at anchor had made a run for it. The bottom was a shingle sort of sand. In fact, the gullets had also left the quayside as the winds were causing them damage as they bashed against the concrete quay.
We were only concerned about the dinghy, but the engine still started and, once the winds had died down, we motored back to Sapphire.
We changed our anchorage that evening and returned to a mooring buoy the next morning. By coffee time another yachtsman rowed over. They had been anchored near us at the start of the storm, but their anchor wouldn’t hold as their yacht shifted position. They were amazed that Sapphire had not been washed up and wrecked. We invited the captain on board for a coffee. He came on board and, instead of sitting down in the cockpit, strode meaningfully to the bow of our yacht. He pointed at our spade anchor and announced, “I want one of those!!”.
I didn’t think that there would be an anchor in which I could be so confident. Should you want an agent in Turkey I would be happy to recommend the Spade anchor to anyone.
Thank you