Ian Tarr - ITE Training & Consulting Inc - Sarca Used On Oil Spill's

To whom it may concern:

We currently train commercial small vessel operators, certifying them under Transport Canada Canada Shipping Act, we have specialized in "On Water" training of emergency crews, search & rescue, enforcement, water survey and oil spill response.

For years we have been looking for a dependable anchor system to hold oil spill boom on river systems, we have had very sporadic success with the in stream anchors holding. Some of the operations, to effectively contain the spills, require the anchors to hold over 3000 feet of boom in 3-5 mph current. The "slipping" of the anchors mean we loose containment of the oil spill and have to spend hours & hours resetting the containment booms, resulting in the environmental damage to many more miles of the river, polluting more water and increasing the cleanup costs and time.
Since last year when we discovered the SARCA anchors at the Vancouver boat show we have been comparing the holding characteristics of the SARCA against the anchors we previously used. We have found that the SARCA anchor successfully held in just about all bottom types over 95% of the time compared to less than 60% on the old anchor systems. The other point is that the SARCA set quickly and solid, once it is set we have not had it "slip". We have found the SARCA anchor system to be a superior holding system for oil spill booms. The major oil and pipeline companies, and spill response companies in western Canada and the northern states are starting to change their current anchoring system to the use the SARCA as the main "in stream anchor".

We have picked the SARCA # 9 as the standard size as it manageable by 2 crew on smaller vessel as well as the larger barge and landing craft vessels that we currently use in emergency response. We currently use a rode of 40 to 60 feet of 3/8 inch chain before the boom rope to help hold the anchor shank down (10:1 ratio) we are now considering reducing this chain length as the SARCA seem to be designed to dig the shank in itself. The SARCA anchor system was employed on the recent Wabamun Lake Alberta Spill (August 2005) and found to hold well, it did not "slip" even when holding thousands of feet of lake boom with storm force (40-50 kph) winds.

As a trainer of spill response crews (and a supplier of spill response services) we have found the SARCA anchor works better than any other anchor system we have tried. Thanks for providing a great product and quick service.

Sincerely,

lan Tarr
I T E Training & Consulting Inc.