Bruce or Claw Anchor
This claw-shaped anchor was designed by Peter Bruce from the Isle of Man in the 1970s. Bruce gained his early reputation from the production of large-scale commercial anchors for ships and fixed installations such as oil rigs. The Bruce and its copies, known generically as "claws", have become a popular option for small boaters. It was intended to address some of the problems of the only general-purpose option then available, the plough. Claw-types set quickly in most seabeds and although not an articulated design, they have the reputation of not breaking out with tide or wind changes, instead slowly turning in the bottom to align with the force.
Claw types have difficulty penetrating weedy bottoms and grass. They offer a fairly low holding-power-to-weight ratio and generally have to be oversized to compete with other types. On the other hand they perform relatively well with low rode scopes and set fairly reliably. They cannot be used with hawsepipes.
Read more about this topic: Anchor, Small Boat Anchors
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