Chief, I think Danforths are pretty common on the East coast as well. Most small boats I see have Danforth style anchors. Many bigger boats I see have a Lewmar Delta on the roller.
I was kinda thinking about this, and I vaguely remembered some history of the Danforth, cribbed from some book or other I must have read 20 years ago... And, I was also thinking about my Grandfather. So I looked on Wikipedia to see "American Richard Danforth invented and developed the "Danforth" pattern in the 1940s, a return to the symmetrical concept but with very large flat plate flukes. This anchor offers very good holding power for its weight (high efficiency) but does not perform well in other respects, meaning that it is not a good general purpose anchor. The original Danforth is still manufactured and sold by Tie Down Engineering in the USA." (I quote this only to show my evolution on anchors, not that Wikipedia's "does not perform well in other respects" is any justification for or against Danforths.)
So, remembering my Grandfather getting out of WWII, and boating through the 50's, I can imagine that at the time, the "new style" lightweight Danforth probably had much appeal for him. And, he never needed a cruising anchor, because he never anchored out for any length of time. It's what we had around, and it did its job well.
In the interim, he has passed away, before the internet became a widely available information source, and so he never really knew about any other anchor design developments after the Danforth.
But I remember some guys on a British small boat forum I frequent, talking about how they store their ground tackle and anchor in a bucket up under the foredeck. And I couldn't understand how in the world they could put a Danforth in a bucket, for one thing, and if they had a large enough bucket, how they could keep it from falling over and putting a spine through the hull. That's when I started to learn about other anchor types, such as CQRs, Bruces and the like. And I found I could get a small Bruce that worked well, and fit into a bucket up under my foredeck.
Fast forward a few years, and now I'm learning about Deltas, Rocnas, and Mantus. And there are videos of people trying to demonstrate how they work. Much of this stuff seems to make sense to me. Even though Granddad never had chain on his anchor, I've got 1 boat length, even though it's heavy, because I see how it can help keep the shank down, and prevent chafe on an all rope warp. It's all somewhat funny to me, because I have no need of a storm anchor, but I try to prepare my stuff for worst case scenarios. Do I need to anchor through a storm? Probably not, I can probably outrun it home to the marina, given it's only a few miles on our lake. But, I've got this funny worst case mindset
It's all an evolution, and if it makes sense to me, I'll use it. I hope to share what works, and what makes sense to me. If someone comes up with good reasons why not, I'm all for it. If someone I know routinely experiences worse situations than me, and uses an anchor, trusts it and never has a bad set or a drag, well, I'm gonna lean in that direction next time I need a new anchor!
