THE COMPLETE ANCHORING HANDBOOK – Alain Poiraud and Achim and Erica Ginsberg-Klemnt. Published in soft covers by McGraw-Hill at £11.99 or $19.95. 212 pages with b/w photographs (no colour). ISBN 9-7900-7147-508-2

Ask any two yachties for their opinion on anchoring and you are guaranteed a lively debate, each waiting for the other to finish a story supporting their own opinion so that they can trump it with a contrary experience of their own. Anchoring is rightly a mysterious art, in that the precise nature of the surface to which your anchor is secured is usually a matter of guesswork – the chart may say Mud, but who is to know that by chance you have landed on a small deposit of gravel, and so on?

However, there is also some well-established science on the subject, and this book contains all you might need to know. Alain Poiraud is an engineer whose brief has included designing electronic hearts as well as racing and cruising, latterly in his self-designed and built ketch. For our purposes, however, he is best known as the inventor of the Spade anchor. Here I must declare an interest – I write from Brazil, six years into a circumnavigation of South America, including three seasons in Chile, aboard Pen Azen, a 53ft ketch which carries three Spades on board. One is in constant use, a second has been used six times in tandem (a technique we abandoned), and the third has yet to get wet.

Achim Ginsberg-Klemnt is an engineer specialising in underwater geophysical sonar systems and seafloor mapping. Erica Ginsberg-Klemnt teaches writing and, with her husband, has cruised all over the world since 1992.

So much for the authors’ experience. Thirty years ago most yachts had a CQR and possibly a Danforth. Then came the Bruce and the Delta, the latter in many ways the first of a modern generation. Suddenly we have a bewildering choice – Fortress, Rocna, Sarca, Manson Supreme, Bugel, Kobra, Super Max and Spade, to name but a few. Most OCC boats will already have anchors, and cruising folk are slow to change if already using an anchor with which they have experience and faith. But if you are interested in making your boat ‘stay put’, you will enjoy this book.

This book is not a commercial for the Spade. It treats with objectivity the strengths and weaknesses of a whole variety of anchors, and leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions according to his own boat and cruising grounds. A large number of photos, diagrams, graphs and tables cover such subjects as Seabed Characteristics, the Forces on an Anchor, Anchor Selection (have more than one type on board, they recommend, a test I thought I had failed – though as I write these words I remember that somewhere on board we also have a Fortress, ten years’ cruising and still unused).

Anchor rode choice is covered, and their conclusion is hard to argue with – a chain leader followed by nylon, joined with a splice. We all know that this makes sense, but find me a windlass and chain locker that caters for this combination. I cannot recall a serious cruising boat without an all-chain rode for its main anchor. Bow-rollers also feature, along with windlasses, chain selection, elasticity tables, wiring demands ... indeed everything to do with deck equipment and its proper use.

Under anchoring techniques, tandem anchoring is condemned. Alain Poiraud’s research on the subject was somewhat more scientific than our own. He anchored in tandem almost 70 times, diving to check almost every time. For reasons well explained in the book he finds against it.

Also included is an article by Alain Fraysse entitled A Theoretical Study on Rode Behaviour (too technical for me, but many will find it fascinating), and an excellent article by Chuck Hawley, who has 25 years’ experience with West Marine and is a veteran of many anchor tests including those for Sail and Practical Sailor. Read his scary sixth paragraph and make absolutely certain that you buy the real thing. Even he could not tell Chinese and US copies from the original – until they wholly failed on testing.

In summary, The Complete Anchoring Handbook has everything you will need to fuel a lively debate in the cockpit over a few sundowners, as well as to make an informed choice when next you buy an anchor.

IJ (at anchor, Ilha dos Porcos, Brazil)