Anchor choices

caltexflanc,
Got me there cal. Perhaps I'm naive but I am a consumer like most other Americans. One dosn't even know where most things are made. They are an assembly of parts made all over the world. Many of the parts are even designed in far away places. Harley Davidson's carburetor comes to mind. Much better design and quality of product than the carb that was made in the USA. Japanese products were once looked down on as junk but time discovered they were better than ours. The #1 car in the USA is not Chevrolet. I was wondering when Chevy fell off the throne? I think it was quite awhile back.

But I think the real niave person is the one that assumes that a product made in a certain country is junk. I don't have time to study the matter so I just buy and enjoy the fact that I can. Seems to be working too.

Over time products and even countries that make products establish a reputation .. good or bad. China's reputation in the US is not good now but the same forces that were present in evolution of Japanese products are probably present in China and the same history may evolve. The test of time will prevail. I'd buy a Rocna if I wanted one. Or an anchor made in Mexico.

sunchaser said:

For the many of us that have "old style" anchors that work first time every time what are we to do? Other than chuckle of course.

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Indeed Tom and I've never had an anchor fail. Even my "old style" anchors that I'm so fond of but I've never anchored in a gale (50 knots) with an old style anchor. My first gale found me anchored w an early XYZ. Only 13lbs and it held w/o any detectable dragging. For a day and a half. Since then when a gale is forecast I set my newer XYZ. My Supreme probably would have held too and perhaps most or even all of my "old style" anchors. Don't know because I haven't done it. I have 3 Danforths. One that held in 35 knot winds .. the smallest at 13lbs. One 22lb Claw that I always have on board for rocky or questionable bottoms. But the only one I know will hold in extreme conditions is the XYZ.

Let's hear from those that have anchored in 50 knot winds w an "old style" anchor.

Made in China

manyboats said:

Mystic,
If you don't buy things made in China you must not have many things.

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We have what's most important, our health, knock on wood, each other, our family, a few true friends, and our "Outback". What else is there? Oh, maybe a good bottle of spirits and a fine meal too.

As to "things", we own just what we need. We have no desire to clutter our life with useless stuff/junk, especially junk made in China, or from anywhere else for that fact.

We buy what we need, when we need it, and buy the best we can afford; except of course for the extensive inventory of spare parts on board that is.

Sometimes, but not always, it means paying more for a quality item, but that's fine with us. We'll take quality over quantity any day.

Made in China:

Chinese drywall , lead painted toys, recalled baby formula tainted with a chemical used to make plastic, Pet Jerky treats mostly from China are making dogs and cats sick and the tainted jerky treats have killed almost 600 pets, according to an FDA report, etc, etc, etc.

And its not just the US consumer that China is selling their substandard junk to, you've got to read this; Poor-Quality Chinese Concrete Could Lead to Skyscraper Collapses | Wired Design | Wired.com

To each his own. Like they say, "Shop till you drop"......

caltexflanc said:

You obviously have zero experience having things built in China. The Rocna story has been played out thousands of times in dozens of other industries. The Chinese are notorious, left unsupervised, for building things out of spec. Not some of the time, virtually ALL of the time. Especially for newbies to China and smaller firms.

A friend of mine started an entire industry of providing QC and monitoring for foreign companies having things built there (electronics in his case). First, making sure the right materials and components are used per the Bill of Materials. Then, that they all find their way into the product and are fabricated properly. Then, that they are tested properly. Then, that the item finds it way into the right box. Then that the right box with the right item in it finds it's way into the right container. Then, that the right container gets to the right port and the right ship and the right stuff is still inside it when it goes on the ship!

I've seen and heard of the whole scenario playing out not just in electronics, but lamps, furniture, housewares, apparel, etc. So that it happened to some small company marketing anchors is not in the least bit surprising. In fact, I'd expect it.

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Is that why my vitamin supplements don't work anymore

George summed it up pretty well, the only part missing was what the Economist added last year, which was this is actually the Chinese business model. Get the business by bidding low and using the "model" factory and then when you have the business and the American company is on the hook, (e.g. Roncha), Then farm out the work to every little house you can find, to get the cost down and to make money. At that point at the quality plummets, the American (and others) ar between a rock and a hard place. Admit you F..ed up and lose business, or pretend all is fine and hope no one notices (the entire supplement industry)

I just purchased a Vitrifrigo instead of a Isotherm. Products are pretty much the same and the parent companies are within 20 miles of each other in Italy, but isotherm had much of their stuff now made in China with Italian supervision. Now, that's hilarious.:lol::lol::lol::lol:

And I'm actually helping a friend, who lives in China, post his writings about current life, as well as history he is interested in.

I've just started posting his emails, so there are only a few now, but I will be getting more of his emails out there.

His blog is:
dispatchesfromchina | Our Man in China writes about what interests him, be it current life, or obscure history.

OK I guess the "made in China" is much worse than I had remembered. I had forgotten about a lot of stuff that has happened as pointed out by Mystic.
I'll need to quit eating baby formula for breakfast, playing w painted toys and eating jerkey for lunch. Yea I remember that stuff. Very bad.

They do that (some of "them") to make money in very competitive markets. Probably the only way it will stop is for us to quit buying it. And people like me aren't helping in that regard. I'll start being more selective now. Thanks.

Sorry, when did this morph from an anchor discussion to a bash China thread?

Andy G said:

Sorry, when did this morph from an anchor discussion to a bash China thread?

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When people ran out of sensible anchor debate...probably somewhere near the beginning.....

If people would discuss anchoring techniques more than design...they might remain quite sensible for awhile longer....but not likely...

Shoddy products and practices know no geographic boundaries. The firestorm GM is going through right now speaks to a company run by the US government and co-managed by unions that continued to ignore "inherited" issues even when brought forward.

Or how about the US oversight issues regarding continual beef and poultry salmonella cases, cruise ship illness, meth labs, cocaine addictions etc that are execution offenses in China.

Apple, HP, Kenmore, Whirlpool, Audi, BMW, GM, Ford, NIssan, Boeing and countless other companies have successful business units operating in China. Whether China, Europe of the US, nothing makes up for good management.

A trip to a high quality well managed Chinese company whether making steel, boats like Nordhavns, machinery, refined aluminum or beer is a real eye opener. Compare the Chinese high speed rail systems to those in the US - if you can find one in the US.

Knock Rocna all you want, but not for Chinese steel and welding - only for NZ founder's mismanagement of same.

My best anchor is my wife. We're it not for her financial micro management I would be living in a discarded refrigerator box rather than on my GB. Now we have morphed back to anchors.

Knock Rocna all you want, but not for Chinese steel and welding - only for Australian mismanagement of same.

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Maybe we are violently agreeing. Properly supervised and "managed" the right Chinese supplier can produce good, even excellent quality. Still you have to hold Rocna's Chinese supplier accountable to a large degree, they did the welding and were either ignorant of what a good weld was for this application, or knew what good was and failed to tell Rocna "this is not a good way". Given Rocna had produced the anchors to much acclaim previously, Rocna knew how they should be welded.

By the way, Nordhavn, for example went through a similar learning curve. You saw older Nordies with subpar stainless and hardware installation, unfair hulls, etc.

I think the subject of Chinese quality and how it can be good or not good, is very relevant, particularly as relates to this thread and boat stuff in general. An interesting phenomena right now is that as demands and oversight for higher quality from out of country vendors has increased, costs have come up, for better training, higher skilled people that can be trained, quality of raw materials and finished components, etc. Japan saw some of the same thing. Very incrementally, manufacturing of higher tech and/or complex products is moving back over here or not going over there to begin with. It would happen more rapidly if we had more low and midlevel process engineers over here, but the gap is huge; you can see some of the stories about Apple and FoxConn, and why Jobs told Obama a few years ago it would be impossible to produce iPhones over here even if they wanted to. But they are going to move some lower volume, lower model-turnover stuff like iMacs back.

Cal and Chaser very good seemingly objective posts. Was perhaps a good summary.

"lower model-turnover stuff like iMacs back." ... What did you mean by that Cal? Are i-macs going to be made in the US? Better get a new one before that happens.

They started making the very low unit volume Mac Pro highest-end professional desktop in the US late last year. To what extent that expands to other models, we'll see. Between the huge capital investment and lack of production engineers, producing super high volume items like iPhones over here is virtually impossible, and definitely impractical.

The New York Times had an excellent series of articles two years on this particular subject. Here's the first, you can do search for the ones that followed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/b...queezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

There have been many occasions when I have longed to use one of our Macs as a boat anchor, or at least as a small artificial reef. I did have the pleasure of smashing my last MacBook chassis to smithereens before sending to be recycled.

How about Porsche just announcing the recall of all new Carrera GT3s to replace the entire engine - over 1800 of them!

BTW, my DeFever's made in China stainless rails and fittings are perfect, gosh even better than a Mainship's made in FL! The worst boat I ever had for quality - SeaRay, all 3 of them, made in the good old USA. I just never learned.

This blame game nonsense will never stop, just pin the blame where it belongs - ROCNA's QC managed from NZ. Wasn't there a guy named Peter Smith involved that Delfin helped to unmask?

sunchaser said:

How about Porsche just announcing the recall of all new Carrera GT3s to replace the entire engine - over 1800 of them!

BTW, my DeFever's made in China stainless rails and fittings are perfect, gosh even better than a Mainship's made in FL! The worst boat I ever had for quality - SeaRay, all 3 of them, made in the good old USA. I just never learned.

This blame game nonsense will never stop, just pin the blame where it belongs - ROCNA's QC managed from NZ. Wasn't there a guy named Peter Smith involved that Delfin helped to unmask?

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Thank you Chairman Mao III. That pretty much sums up and illustrates the critical thinking skills prevalent today here in the USA.