Fortress Anchors’ story began in 1986 when our founder experience several harrowing anchor failures at sea.

Don Hallerberg, the founder of Fortress Anchors, had been cruising the world on his Hatteras Yacht. In the process, he experienced several serious anchor failures at sea.

He knew there had to be a better, and safer, way to anchor. He went to work and he created an anchor out of light weight high tensile aluminum-magnesium alloy, without any welds that could fail. The result was the Fortress Anchor, a light weight anchor that could easily be disassembled for stowage, who’s parts could easily be replaced. This innovation led to our industry-leading lifetime parts replacement warranty. 

Don put the Fortress Anchor to the test in over 20 world wide trials, including the Biscayne Bay Challenge where a 69 lb Fortress Anchor brought a tug boat at full steam to a complete halt. The line eventually separated and snapped, but the Fortress Anchor was brought to the surface without a scratch. There was also the Chesapeake Bay Test where independent researchers tested the Fortress against 12 different anchor configurations, and the Fortress was shown to hold stronger and set faster than each alternative.

Today, Fortress Anchors are still proudly made here in the USA and we still offer our industry-leading lifetime parts replacement warranty. This video details the story of how Fortress Anchors became the name you know and trust today. 

You can learn more about Fortress at https://www.fortressanchors.com, and you can find a dealer near you by going to our store locator.