Take two words that come up a lot where sailing and cruising are concerned...
Easy Hard
Now, in the world I grew up in those were just two words on a scale but in today's no-middle-ground-at-all world it's become more of an either or case.
The other day someone asked me about rowing and told me as much as he'd like to row it was simply too much like work and was "hard" while on the other hand his 15HP outboard was easy.
I pointed out that, in point of fact, rowing was often easy, occasionally hard, and mostly somewhere between the two with a lean towards the easy.
Of course, this is not the sort of answer he wanted and double downed with since it's got to be either one or the other if it's sometimes hard then it is hard.
Obviously logic not being his strong suit.
The funny thing is I hear this sort of logic all the time in a myriad of boat and cruising discussions including what sort of boat someone should cruise in, which is the best anchor, or what toy is currently flavor of the month in consumer yachting circles and put into logic deprived absolutes of best/worst, new/old, easy/hard, and winner/loser sort of terms.
The upside of all this for us in the VolksCruising cheap seats is that costs come way down if we're willing to actually think past absolutes and, dare we say it, use our brains...
Looking at the West Marine site a 33-pound Rocna anchor (recently on a lot of peoples "best" lists) costs just shy of $360 while a 33-pound Bruce (on just about everybody's best list for a decade and a half) clone by Lewmar only costs $120 (though often on sale for less). Truth is, both anchors are good and the fact that the Bruce clone is lumped into the worst category because it is simply no longer in the best category means we can buy a pretty awesome anchor for a lot less.
The real tragedy is that most of the good/bad conversation about quality or usefulness is simply smoke, mirrors, hype, and truly awful logic.
