Well iy sounds like you had quite a productive day. Kudus on sailing it backwards. I still can't make my boat sail backwards unless of course I want to go forwards.. Regarding your anchoring. I try never to deploy or retrieve my anchor from the bow. On the M17 there just doesn't seem to have enough deck space to manage everything so I prefer to do it all from the cockpit. That's why I first I drop anchor off the stern and cleat off on the stern cleat. Now I'm anchored and secured. Once I'm happy with the hold then I walk the rode bag on the outside of shrouds and rails. I cleat it off on the bow cleat and then walk my riode bag back the same way I came forward . When I get back to the cockpit I release the anchor line from the stern cleat. In essence you've added 17' of scope to your rode. The important thing I do next is to cleat off the line from the bag to the stern cleat. This serves as a safety backup and it makes it easy when I pull anchor. When it come time to pull anchor, all I have to do forward is to uncleat the line at the bow cleat and go back to the cockpit. Since I'm still cleated off at the stern I can work the boat into whatever position I like and then pull everthing back in from the cockpit. I put my bag or crate on the cockpit sole and hold the rode up in my left hand and keep it there. I pull the rode through my left hand with the right and lay it into the crate in whatever random fall it takes. In eight years I've never had a tangle. If you think about it, basically it's the same thing you'd be doing if you ran your rode down into an anchor locker. The only time I ever used the figure 8 routine was on a large gaff rigged schooner with 1" lines used for the throat and peak halyards. Since it was too big to coil it was the only way to control the tangles. Joe ----- Original Message ----- From: Daniel Rich To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 12:04 PM Subject: M_Boats: Anchoring Redux So, yesterday had a really nice sail in Tomales Bay, my usual spot. Winds were light to start, and picked up nicely in the afternoon. All the sailing exercises I picked up at the Small Craft Academy I wanted to do I got done. Series of gybes, MOB drills, sailing backwards, standing up while sailing, sailing with my legs, all good stuff. Now came the anchoring. Perfect conditions. Wind a bit off the shore, shallow enough. So, I got out my Danforth and my new rectangular container complete with 80 feet of flaked rode in a figure 8. So far so good. I couldn't figure out if I dropped from the cockpit whether I should keep the line inside our outside the shrouds and pulpit. I elected inside, which was a mistake. In any event, dropped fine, backed the boat up with wind, set the anchor, and all was well. I walked forward and cleated off on the bow cleat. Had a nice lunch. Now for the fun part. Time to haul anchor. So, I raised the main to cock into the wind, walked forward and grabbed the rode, and pulled hand over hand forward. I easily raised the anchor, along with 20 pounds of reeds. So, I shook those off. In the meantime, the boat was sailing down wind happily without me steering. Now, I managed to wrap tons of rode around various things as I tried to deal with the line. I really looked like Inspector Clousseau by the end of it. Line everywhere. Amazing how much entropy there is on a boat. At least is wasn't 200 feet of it. At this point I shook my fists skyward, grabbed the tiller, and heaved to. Now I was stopped. I was able to extricate all of the line and flake it back into the container without hanging myself accidentally from the boom, stowed it all, and sailed off. Geez. I'm glad nobody was filming. Next time I will run the stuff all outside the shrouds and pulpit, leave the sails down, and try again. I've got a ways to go on that one. Daniel