Rocna Recall - China vs Canada Quality Comparison

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by jackiepitts

This is a somewhat confusing thread. It seems that some people have a personnel axe to grind with Rocna and that is fine as I have felt strongly about certain business practices of various companies in the past but it is confusing to those of us who just want information on whether or not there anchors are going to fail.
We personally own a 55kg that we purchased in mid 2009 (made in Canada). We used it exclusively while cruising Mexico for the past two years and found the anchor to be outstanding as compared to what other boats were using. We NEVER drug and spent many nights in high winds and big swells with no bending of the shaft....that is our experience with this anchor.
I would be interested in hearing from others with personnel experience or any information that does not focus around Rocna's bad marketing or perceived unethical behavior.
Regards,
Jackie

Jackie, the likelihood of your Rocna bending is probably small. It can and has happened with Rocnas made with lower grade steel than the original specification of 800 mPA steel as specified by the designer. All Chinese Rocnas are made with lower grade steel than that specification, and that is an observation not based on anything other than testing and admissions from Rocna. Will it bend? If you can state that it will never be well dug in, perhaps toed up against a rock when a wind shift or tidal shift occurs, then the answer is no, it won't bend. Since you can't know that for sure, I guess the answer is you can't know. What you can know is that the Rocna is weaker than the competition. Is it too weak? Depends, I guess.

[jackiepitts]

Thank you for the reply Delfin.
So my next question is what is West Marine's policy on returning these anchors? Are they accepting all Rocna's for return? even the ones manufactured in Canada? I purchased this anchor through Port Supply so I am curious if West Marine will take the anchor at the store?
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Jackie

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by jackiepitts

Thank you for the reply Delfin.
So my next question is what is West Marine's policy on returning these anchors? Are they accepting all Rocna's for return? even the ones manufactured in Canada? I purchased this anchor through Port Supply so I am curious if West Marine will take the anchor at the store?
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Jackie

WM seems to be taking the high road on this issue, so I would return it to the nearest store after calling them first to verify Port Supply return policy. Any Rocna purchased from WM is being returned without question and probably shipped back to Rocna, since the change in manufacturing standards was apparently hidden from them as well as the consumer by Rocna. If you like the hoop design, the Manson Supreme seems to fit in the same space and tests equivalently. Both are excellent designs, if not of equal quality of manufacturing.

[Vyndance]

In the detail pictures, the weld on the Canada anchor was done to cold to fast. There is a peak in the filler and voids on the shank. It is pretty but is not strong. It is basically glued together.

The one marked China was done a little hot and a little slow. There are no voids. There is absolute penetration from the looks of the puddle. Those two pieces are one.

I doubt they are machine welding a part like that. As far as quality control the one marked Canada should have gone back to the line.

Galvanizing is a hot dip process. If I see big blobs that just tells me the part is going to last longer. I would buy the one no one likes. (if there was not a problem with the shank bending, which is not being addressed in this thread)

[foggysail]

OK, I saw the sloppy weld. Sure, one can argue "if one thing is of poor quality, all of it is poor quality." I cannot accept that premise. The pretty weld may have been done with automatic welders while the other weld actually had human involvement. But I don't know and most likely others here in the forum don't know either.

A weld does not need to be pretty to be functional.

Now the metal quality---- that is another matter. As to Rocna, I purchased a Manson.

Foggy

[Hogan]

A few more points in response to some confusion and to clarify some technical points:

1) There have been no known weld or catastrophic shaft failures on Rockna anchors that I'm aware of. I photographed the welds on the two anchors after assuming that one was of Canadian Providence "CN" and one that was definitely "Made in China"

Sloppy welds can be very very strong - traditional (Chemical flux shielded stick welds) can be VERY strong, if quite unattractive. I know - I fabricated many bits and pieces for my race car (yet another topic) using a stick welder. Even a properly brazed joint will be incredibly strong - but hand welding is an art as much as a science, and the skill of the welder plays an important part, as do numerous other factors, including the preparation of the base metal, weld wire quality, flux moisture content, ambient temperature, etc, etc, etc....

After the 1994 Northridge Earthquake (a "mere" 6.9) struck Los Angeles, countless modern welded frame steel mid and high rise structures experienced brittle weld failure due to Lincoln Electric having substituted poor quality electrode wire for dozens of years. These joints would have failed catastrophically had the shaking continued for another 30 seconds, or been more intense, or followed by another aftershock of equal or greater magnitude:

http://www.weldreality.com/north%20r...ke%20story.htm

Lincoln Electric behaved exactly how Rockna is behaving - though putting millions rather than merely thousands of lives at risk. The city of Los Angeles ultimately outlawed the substandard weld wire, and required retrofitting and rewelding of all suspect structural connections under it's jurisdiction - at great cost to property owners.

I saw this sort of thing ALL THE TIME AS AN ARCHITECT and finally quit the profession - though it was my life's work.

I refuse to participate in or look the other way at corruption - especially corruption that endangers life and limb - but again - that's another topic.

So the anchor welds are not the point, though they are critical - it's that they serve as a visual marker for QUALITY CONTROL at Rockna.

2) Regarding metallurgy: I assume the figures being quoted 800 vs 600 are for the tensile strength of the steel being used. If so, we have a 25% reduction in tensile strength. I'd like to see the engineering calculations and finite element analysis assumptions, models, and figures that led Rockna executives and/or engineers to conclude that it was safe to downgrade thier steel and risk my life and boat on.

That said, metallurgy is a complex topic. While I'm versed in the basic, I'm not a metallurgist, and would need to defer to one to evaluate the properties of the lower tensile alloy as it applied to the expected loading on an anchor shaft.

Metallurgy always involves trade-offs - increases in the harness of steel are mainly achieved by adding carbon to the alloy, which also increases it's brittleness. Alloys developed for high tensile strength are numerous, and exhibit different trade offs between cost, corrosion resistance, ductility, etc, etc, etc.... In the US structural and architectural steel is graded by the ASTM - and there are literally dozens of different grades:

http://www.astm.org/Standards/steel-standards.html

Automotive steels have thier own organization and standards: SAE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_steel_grades

And of course, Europe has it's own standards:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_grades

Note that all these are "standard" grades, and can be tweaked by metallurgy during manufacture to achieve a dizzying array of properties.

Ever hear of "Corten" steel?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weathering_steel

Yup - it's a structural steel who's metallurgy is designed to make it RUST quickly, thus (supposedly) protecting the underlying steel!

US Steel's headquarters are (famously - to architects like me) made of the stuff! It was very popular in the 60ies and early 70ies, until several large buildings had to be demolished when it was discovered that rust does not always protect the underlying steel.

Lol.

So this stuff is not well understood - even by so called experts. It's stupid and dangerous to arbitrarily substitute a different grade of steel on a heavily loaded structural element in a well proven design without extensive engineering studies and testing that verify it's prudent to do so.

So it's very simple to this observer:

A sailor copies an existing design (the Bugel) and then modifies and improves it down in New Zealand. His product is excellent, and slowly becomes trusted by the cruising community.

Then he sells out for a dump truck full of cash to the highest bidder - perhaps retaining a financial interest in the company perhaps not.

Said high bidder is a lowlife, a bilge rat, who like most people driven by greed, would probably sell his own children into slavery if it meant he could drive a more expensive car or buy a slightly larger Lear jet.

To accomplish this, the bilge rat fires the old staff loyal to the original inventor, and hires out manufacturing to the cheapest cut rate Shanghai child labor sweat shop he can find, and it's unskilled labor pool welds together crude approximations of the original developers's design out of the disgarded dog food they are fed out of by the Shanghai sweat shop bosses.

Meanwhile, Developer and Bilge Rat meet in San Tropei over Dom and caviar to toast thier mutual prosperity and business acumen.

And Rockna anchors the world over start bending and failing to reset in the extreme conditions they are marketed for....

Stay tuned.

[marinextreme]

Originally Posted by GMac

Rocna has RINA certification???

You sure about that as I've never seen a Cert with Rocna on it. I have seen one that refers to 'a anchor', a bit later it refers to 'Holdfast' so going on every other Cert I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot), RINA has given approval for a 'Holdfast Anchor', which is a wall anchor easily available at all hardware shops, it's not a marine one in any form. Every other HHP and SHHP Cert I've seen is very very specific in what it is Approving and names are extensively used.

Mind you it doesn't matter that much as next to know one uses RINA and some countries don't even recognise it. In NZ toilet paper has more official standing than a RINA Cert. Do they make RINA Certs in 3 ply, that would make them actually useful down here.

I know Manson gets checked very regularly by Lloyds to make sure their welders are up to speed (test welds have to be done and checked for each welder), the design hasn't changed, the material is still what they say it is and many other hoops. I'd expect Fortress and Anchor-Rite (Sarca and Excel) have to do the same to hold their SHHP Approvals. Just yesterday a testing outfit busted, or tried too, a few Anchor-Rite anchors in the name of Certification checks (which must have hurt their wallet, some were over 100kg)

And ya have to laugh at Banbury saying 'a number under 300 anchors were dodgy and shipped to Nth America only'. I wonder how the proven substandard steel Rocnas were found in NZ chandlers then?

There is a significant pile of very Rocna like (I'm told they can't use that name) anchors sitting in NZ at the place they were being manufactured, awaiting a Court decision due very shortly.

The Rocna is a good design and even with the dodgy steel/s I don't see them flying to pieces left right and centre. But they are over priced compared to the equally good or better performing reputably made Supreme, Excel and others. But how would you know the next lot arriving in the chandlers haven't been tweaked again to something totally dangerous, from what I can see you can't. That para applies to the chinese made one only, there has never been a question over the NZ or Canadian made ones.

Someone suggested to me last week Rocna is moving it's HQ to Area 51 and getting David Duchovny to front their marketing campaign using the slogan 'We want you to believe'. As much as I don't believe that, it would sort of fit the style we've seen of late.

Apologies to the X Files and all aliens worldwide, no slur intended so please don't beam me up just yet Scotty

FACT: A total of 1296 were shipped worldwide in the early 2010 period that he is referring to.

FACT: 538 of these were the 400mpa, and 758 were of the 600mpa

FACT: All of these are below the 800mpa required.

FACT: everything prior to 2010 was 400mpa.

FACT: I will supply the relevant proof for the moderators to back this up if required.

[GMac]

Originally Posted by jackiepitts

We personally own a 55kg that we purchased in mid 2009 (made in Canada). We used it exclusively while cruising Mexico for the past two years and found the anchor to be outstanding as compared to what other boats were using. We NEVER drug and spent many nights in high winds and big swells with no bending of the shaft....that is our experience with this anchor.
I would be interested in hearing from others with personnel experience or any information that does not focus around Rocna's bad marketing or perceived unethical behavior.
Regards,
Jackie

I deal in 1000's of anchors (assorted and inc Rocnas) a year and would say you have no more nor no less a chance of getting a bent shank than most other anchors on the market. Your Canadian Rocna was built of high grade stuff, which is higher than many other anchors on the market, not all but many.

Could your shank bend at some stage in it's life?? Of course it could, any shank can bend if pushed beyond it's limits. Anyone who says they make an anchor (of the traditional sort of long shank design) and the shank won't bend is kidding themselves or applying for a marketing job at........ But to bend yours would take a lot of effort, more than would be reasonably expected for it to see in normal use.

No need to worry Jackie, you don't have a Canadian built lemon, you have a good anchor. The exact same applies to NZ made ones.

If it was a chinese one the above reply would have been different.

I doubt West's would be keen on taking a Canadian or NZ built version back. There is nothing wrong with those in construction or, at that time, the marketing of them. All of this who-ha is only about the Chinese made ones and the lack of transparency, one could say company ethics, after the change to china manufacture.

I suppose we should say 'the ones made in China' rather than 'Chinese made' as the Chinese only made what they were told to make.

Originally Posted by alan_za

To all those people complaining about their Rocna's being made in China I would ask; where do you think your chain is made?

Italy, Australia, Sweden and a small amount from the US. I'm not brave enough to sell 95% of chinese made chain onto a boat. Most isn't what it's sold as and some is just dangerous.

[JonJo]

Its an interesting thread

I think someone was querying whether their 2009 55kg Rocna was Canadian, New Zealand or Chinese. My understanding was the manufacture was transferred to China at the back end of 2008. The anchors made in China smaller than 55kg have a cast fluke, with the name Rocna cast into the fluke, and the 55kg anchors and larger retain the original design of the folded and welded plate fluke. On this basis a 55kg anchor would look the same, whether it was made in China, NZ or Canada. If it was bought very early in 2009 it might not be made in China, if it was later it could have come from anywhere. Given that WM seem to be offering a money back guarantee on Chinese made Rocna anchors I'd be hot footing it back and swapping it for something whose manufacturers show a bit of integrity.

Something missing from this thread is anyone querying why it is only WM who have a recall, yet Grant King has posted that all anchors made in China are sub spec. Seems a bit odd to me. Equally why suppliers are still selling Rocna anchors, given the past history - most people (again oddly - not all) are appalled that the specification should have been changed yet distributors and chandlers continue to sell I can only assume they have had pretty watertight assurances becuase they are surely not motivated only by profit and they must have the interests and safety of their customer base at heart.

The other odd thing that occured is that WM issued the recall - and according to Mr Bambury the low spec steel was used 12 months prior to the recall. Why was there no earleir recall, why did it take so long?

A final comment - can we get away from the bigoted China bashing hymn. Many are happy to buy iPads made in China, happy to buy Musto made in China, excellent quality proof tested chain is made in China. If you buy cheap Chinese chain, you get what you pay for - cheap chain. I would not expect cheap chain to be proof tested. Rocna anchors made in China are made to the specification demanded by the licensee (Holdfast). If you want to criticise focus on Holdfast and the executive team - it is they that set the spec, it is they who claim to have professional quality control etc

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by jackiepitts

Thank you for the reply Delfin.
So my next question is what is West Marine's policy on returning these anchors? Are they accepting all Rocna's for return? even the ones manufactured in Canada? I purchased this anchor through Port Supply so I am curious if West Marine will take the anchor at the store?
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Jackie

Jackie, GMAC is quite right - I missed that you believed your anchor was of Canadian manufacturing because I focused on the 2009 purchase date. During that year, Canada was not making any Rocnas, although Grant King can verify. However, yours could have come from old stock, and if so, it will not have cast flukes with the Rocna name cast in. Again, Grant can verify.

If your Rocna is from Canada, then there would be no reason to exchange it for a Manson since they would be made of the same material. Sorry if I confused you.....

[boatsmith]

Can somebody direct me to some photos of bent Rocnas?

[jackiepitts]

Delfin you had not confused me at all. It was all the political stuff that was going on on earlier posts that were confusing me. The last several posts have been quite helpful.
We did purchase the anchor in mid 2009 but there was a sticker on it that stated "made in Canada" when the anchor arrived which is why I believe it to be a Canadian made anchor.
By the information I have gotten over the past several posts and the fact that the anchor performed satisfactorily over the past few years while cruising we will keep the Rocna we currently have. No point in fixing something that already works right?
Thanks for all the great information!
Jackie

[careka]

more info.
Sail-World.com : West Marine offers refunds on Rocna anchors over manufacturing issue

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by boatsmith

Can somebody direct me to some photos of bent Rocnas?

As noted, there are quite a few on the different threads on this, but here is one sent to me recently. I have no clue what the provenance of this anchor is, but if Grant King is correct that many Rocnas were shipped with 400 mPA steel, bending the shank like this would be pretty easy to do.

[avb3]

Looking forward to the full Practical Sailor September report on Rocna.

Here is a quote from thier blog of August 10/11:

The controversy surrounding the Rocna anchors sheds a light on the dark, not-so-secret secret in marine manufacturing: Once a domestic-made product gains a large market share or loyal following, production is often shifted offshore; profits go up, prices remain steady (although not always), and quality often suffers.

Makers argue that they must remain competitive and keep costs down. However, a shift to offshore production—particularly when you're dealing with marine-grade or high-tensile steel products—requires extremely close monitoring of quality control. As we've seen in some of our past tests, not all manufacturers are following through on quality control.

For a more detailed report on West Marine's “product specification notice” and the history of the controversy surrounding Rocna anchors, see the September issue of Practical Sailor magazine.

Very damning, with more to come.

Not sure if this type of article would have come about in the old days. Thanks to Delfin for testing the metal and Grant Smith for his indepth knowledge raising it on forums.