Buegel anchor

From the Rocna Knowledge Base

"Bügel" is German for "handle", and is also used when English-speakers would say "roll-bar". The full name is "Bügelanker" which of course just means "roll-bar anchor". Nb.: "Bügel" can be correctly circumscribed as "Buegel" if generating the umlaut ü is awkward. The German steel firm WASI produces a version which is called the WASI Bügelanker, and this name is frequently shortened to just "WASI", particularly in the USA. This is marketed as part of the WASI GTS (Ground Tackle System) which includes their stainless steel PowerBall swivel and chain.

However, the Bügel design happens to work quite well in weed, which has made it popular in Europe and Turkey. It was the first anchor to have at least partial success in the weed mat sea floor synonymous with areas such as the Mediterranean.

The design is also very easy to build, which means that cheap knock-offs are readily available in most countries, especially those in the Mediterranean. The design was patented but it seems the intellectual property was never defended, and has since expired in any case, and these knock-offs are just collectively referred to as genericized "Bügels".

If a Rocna is compared to a Bügel, it will be seen that the Rocna is a far more sophisticated design. Get a sheet of steel, cut out a triangle, attached a half-pipe to the rear, weld on a straight bar for a shank, and you have yourself one Bügel. It is very primitive and the roll-bar is really the only similarity with Peter's design. The straight bar shank of the Bügel creates problems when stowing on a boat's bow (it is hard to pull home properly). The Rocna has the concave fluke, it has tip-weight (the toe is thicker than the heel), it has the skids, and the shank is a much more practical design.

A properly built Bügel (many are not done right and don't work as well as they should) will work fairly well in weed, at least better than plows and claws. They also offer a bit more fluke area than the older types of anchors, meaning they generally are superior. It is important to note the quality assurance problems with any Bügel anchor – other than the stainless steel WASI, there can be little assurance of quality, and many of these anchors are knocked together by fabricators who possess no expertise specific to anchors. A Bügel knock-off built by a fabricator in New Zealand was tested by ourselves – in addition to poor construction quality, it was found to have a weight-on-tip percentage of only 13%. Accordingly it exhibited very poor setting behavior.

The WASI version is available only in 316 stainless. This is a bit of an issue. 316 is not particularly strong – we offer the Rocna in stainless too, but for the shank we use an Australian high grade steel called SAF 2205 which has roughly 3 times the tensile strength (and even that is slightly less than our regular galvanized models). There are lots of stainless anchor manufacturers who use only 316 for stainless anchors – we think this is not a good idea.

Independent testing

There is a large amount of independent testing of both the Bügel and Rocna. However, the following summary comments from West Marine in the USA relating to their 2006 comparison testing, including the WASI Bügel, best sums up the true differences.

West Marine 2006 testing Quotes complete & verbatim		WASI 35 SS (32 lb):
		“	Varied results from 1,300lb to maximum tension. Failure mode was generally dragging.	”
		Rocna 15 (32 lb):
		“	Superb, consistent performance. Held a minimum of 4,500lb and engaged immediately.	”