The December 2006 issue of YM contained the magazine's biggest ever anchor test.
One innovative anchor - the HydroBubble - stood out. Here's a letter from the inventor, explaining how it works.

To order a copy of the anchor test click here



Dear YM,
Please let me introduce myself. My name is John Willis. I am the inventor of the HydroBubble anchor system, and the founder of Anchor Concepts, Inc. I am a retired industrial engineer and an inventor of industrial processes and proprietary equipment. Although I am not a sailor I feel the need to continue working on the HydroBubble anchor project. I believe that safe and reliable anchoring is one of the most important safety issues in boating, particularly for sail vessels. I will agree with you that our anchor looks a little strange -'weird' is probably going a little too far. Its strange look compared to other designs and perhaps more traditional styles is what compels the HydroBubble to work so exceptionally. The HydroBubble is the only significant new design in decades and as such is patented.

The reason it works so well is that the buoyancy bubble makes the anchor immediately orient itself upright when launched into the water, and the natural physics involved changes the center of gravity so that it ALWAYS reaches the bottom ground in a completely upright position. Further to that the anchor will always revert to an upright position if, for instance, it is pulled out sideways or backwards and will immediately reset itself. The most important aspect of all of this is that the HydroBubble does not have to react with the ground to help it to set. We utilize the only consistent factors to do with the deployment of an anchor; these consistent factors are the water and gravity. ALL other anchors have to deal with the extreme variables of ground conditions to help orient the anchor to set. This is why the other designs whilst they maybe similar in shape and may perform in easy test situations, (i.e. rolling over on the garage floor) when they encounter difficult ground (i.e. weed beds, rocks, sloppy mud/sand, hard bottoms, etc.) they have no option but to try to deal with the variable ground conditions. We come as close as it can be to a 100% success rate simply because our anchor ALWAYS approaches these variables in ground conditions in a perfectly upright position, ready to set. This enables the single point to immediately dig in to whatever is down there.

We have 100% customer satisfaction. To that end we offer our customers an absolute satisfaction money back guarantee. We attend many boat shows and of course meet many people who have our products. We have yet to meet anyone that has told us they could not set their HydroBubble anchor, and they also state that they always had difficulty with other anchor styles, and that they were not in any way dissatisfied with our product's performance.




Regards,
John Willis
www.hydrobubble.com

Yachting Monthly, 8 March 2007