Ground anchors are a great idea, allowing you to winch yourself out of trouble when there isn’t a tree or other suitable anchoring point in sight. But carrying around a large, bulky ground anchor isn’t always practical.
Enter the locally conceived and made Lan-cor version.
While traditional anchors are big and cumbersome, when packed in its carry bag the Lan-cor is less than half a metre long, weighs just nine kg and can easily be stored with the rest of your recovery equipment in your vehicle.
This, in a nutshell, is why more and more people – including NZ4WD columnist Richard Soult as well as the likes of the Fire Service, Department of Conservation (DoC) and the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) – are going the Lan-cor way.
New twist on old principle
The Lan-cor unit’s compact size when packed down is obviously one of the key reasons for its wide appeal. But it is not the only one by any means. When you need it, it is easily unpacked and assembled into a strong, easy-to-manage anchor. And once it is set in the ground, it can withstand enormous pulling loads in most terrain – including sand, where – amazingly – it is at its best!
Lan-cor is not just another auger anchor, either. In fact, it puts a new twist on the old auger principle by using an auger blade with a length of wire rope attached just above the auger head which the winch attaches to. Several detachable lengths of shaft attach above the blade to screw the anchor into the ground.
The auger head of the Lan-cor is made up of a 25mm diameter solid steel shaft, while the detachable lengths of shaft are box section that clip together to give an overall length of 1.8 metres.
Goes further for longer
What this means is that the Lan-cor design can go far further into the ground than other anchors and as it is pulled from the bottom has much greater holding power in a far wider range of terrain.
With an impressive 5.5 tonne safe working load, Lan-cor can withstand some pretty serious loads. In fact, manufacturer field tests at a beach showed that the Lan-cor easily withstood the pull of two long wheel base Toyota Land Cruisers, both sunk in sand to the axles, winching themselves out at the same time off the same anchor.
Lan-cor is used by New Zealand and Australian essential services and, after a stringent and lengthy process of testing and certification has now been picked up by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and is now on its list of approved devices.
For more information on this fantastic locally designed and built product visit the website www. lan-cor.com to watch two short videos of the Lan-cor in action, and to order an anchor of your own.
Specs
Carry bag size: 46cm long x 22cm wide x 17cm high
Assembled anchor length: 1.8m
Weight: 9kg
Certified load rating: 5.5 tonne (SWL)