Anchoring 97 SNOB

The lift ring is fine to use for the anchor.

In my boating class they say to never anchor from the stern. 1. Anchor from the bow so the boat is always pointing into the current/tide. 2. Since the stern has the potential to sit lower, you increase the probability to swamp with a stern anchor.


Boat-Ed.com unit 4: topic 2

not arguing against spiral, because that is true and a good guideline. but In my opinion i say to use your best possible judgement whether to anchor from bow or stern. in calm shallow waters, I will usually tie up at the stern and sometimes I'll hitch it on my boom midship just because I dont want anyone climbing over my windshield and slipping and hurting themselves. But it all depends on the wind direction, current, how people around you are anchored and how i want to be facing.
For example, If I anchored off the bow and the pontoon full of babes is ahead and the bayliner full of bros is off my stern I'm definitely going to spin that thing around.

To add a quick note on top of that I think its more important to have the right style anchor and enough chain and line. if you think you have enough chain you probably should get more. and enough rode to keep you anchored in the deepest part of your travels in case you need to stay put in an emergency.

Our ocean vessels typically will swing on their bow chain at anchorage. Keeps the vessel pointed into the wind. That is good advice for many situations.

At Lake Powell you may have some deep areas of 100+ feet so be sure you have enough line. In the sheltered coves, I like to use a bow and stern rig to keep the boat fixed in one place. When anchored at shore I use a land spike for the bow and an anchor off the stern to keep from fouling the underwater gear. The bow typically stays off the shore a foot or 2.

Also, lake Powell is rising be extremely fast, so warch your anchorage. Ive seen several inexperienced boaters cut anchor lines in extreme conditions at Powell. Have fun!

Thanks everybody, you are all awesome!! I have some followup questions though that maybe you can help me with.

For very starters, there is no way possible that I can just anchor from the bow only. The situation I'm talking about here is not one where I'm in the middle of the lake fishing and I just want to put an anchor in and face into the wind. The situation is that I'm going to pull the boat right up to the beach that we are camping on and I'm trying to hold the boat just a few feet off the shore like you see in this picture below.

http://www.nps.gov/glca/planyourvisit/images/primitive_cmp_3.gif

If I only put a bow anchor on, then I could wake up in the morning with the wind blowing from our beach toward the water, and suddenly I have to swim 100 yards out to get in the boat to go skiing in the morning.

So what I need is kind of what Jonny Quest mentions where I will put a land spike on the shore and hook it to the front of the boat. Then I will need an anchor out further into the lake (I'm thinking slide anchor) that will connect to the back of the boat and with these two points, it will hold the boat in one spot and it will stay in that one spot regardless of wind direction while I am sleeping at night.

And then my question becomes, what should I hook the stern anchor to? Is it stronger to hook it to the lifting eye like gun-driver says? Or is is stronger to hook it to the metal loops of the swim deck like TRBenj seems to be suggesting? Or should I actually not hook to either one of them because neither of them is strong enough to hold a heavy wind load pulling on it if a storm comes up?

I agree, the rear lifting ring will be perfectly fine. We've done this countless times with both boats. I would advise you to rotate the bow out towards the lake though to prevent incoming waves from crashing over the transom and wanting to push the boat to shore. It also makes boarding easier. An anchor buddy works great in this situation as well.

Go to somewhere like Overton's.com and look up Anchor Buddy. Those systems are great. You anchor off shore with the bow and you basically pull the stern in close to shore to board the boat. The anchor buddy is like a big rubber band system. You can leave your anchor buddy out in the water during the day with a float while your boating. Then hook up later in the day.   Works easier with an open bow boat. You do not have to climb over the windshield.

C Bass,

Your boat looks great !!!!!!!!!!   

Donald

Most important:   Any Lake Powell visitors must return here with lots of photos.

+1 on the anchor buddy.

I travel from lake to lake depending on the day so I never really know where I’ll need to tie up. I’ve tried a few methods, but found the anchor buddy works best.   When I want to pull up somewhere I tie the anchor buddy to the rear lift ring, drop anchor about 45’ from shore and idle in nose first. Once on shore I run a 15’ dock line from the bow eye to something solid, and let the anchor buddy pull the boat back out to deeper water.   When I want to board again I just pull the boat in to shore, climb on and let the bungee take me back out before firing up.

The trick is getting used to where and when to drop anchor. Too far away and it feels like a game of tug-of-war. Too close and it doesn’t have enough to pull the boat back off she shore.

Yeah... I am curious why someone would want floating anchor rode... chain rode or at least some chain works best.

Are you talking about a line for a stern anchor tied or set ashore?

I anchored my 97 SNOB from the rear lifting ring regularly. Never had an issue.

Rob