Anchor Test Results

Most of the anchor tests conducted over the years were sponsored or staged by anchor manufacturers.

Most pre-date the introduction of the Bulwagga Anchor.  

More recently, Practical Sailor and Powerboat Reports conducted independent anchor tests.  Like Consumer Reports, these highly regarded publications accept no advertising. Their product testing is unbiased and is not subject to influence from advertisers.       

Some anchor manufacturers continue to cite results from outdated, company sponsored anchor tests in their advertising. We think you will agree that more recent, more comprehensive independent anchor tests conducted by Practical Sailor and Powerboat Reports provide a more reliable measure of marine anchor performance.

The following reprints and references are provided in their entirety as originally published. 
We have obtained permission to provide them on our site so you can easily compare anchors.   

We want to call your attention to the following facts so that you may take them into consideration as you read the test results:

• The 16.5 lb. aluminum Spade anchor tested is much larger in surface area and overall size than the 17.0 pound galvanized steel Bulwagga
  it is compared with. A comparably sized Spade in steel would weigh almost double the weight of the Bull in the test.
  
• The far more compact Bull held up to 88% of 1000 lb. test load limit achieved by the larger anchor in the sand bottom tests and decisively outperformed it in the mud bottom tests.
  
• The American made Bull tested is HALF the cost of the French import.

We leave it to you to decide which is the # 1 anchor in performance and real value. 

To directly access the Anchor Test Articles in Practical Sailor and Powerboat Reports you will need Acrobat Reader.  Acrobat Reader is free and can be easily downloaded by clicking here or on the the Acrobat logo below.

 

   Practical Sailor  
   Anchor Comparisons (~100Kb)

   Powerboat Reports  
   Anchor Comparisons (~100Kb)

Other Practical Sailor and Powerboat Reports issues that have articles about testing and comparing the Bull to other anchors are available directly from the publisher's own website at http://www.practical-sailor.com/. Original test results appeared in Practical Sailor issues of January 1999 (sand) and December 1999 (mud). The same articles appeared in Powerboat Reports, with the sand test a month earlier (12-98).