Handling Anchors on Boats Without Anchor Lockers

How do you keep an anchor and its rode at the ready if you don’t have an anchor locker up at the bow? It’s a common challenge for owners of older cruising sailboats in the 22- to 30-foot range.

By the mid 1980s, anchor lockers were usually standard equipment on smaller cruisers, with volume builders Beneteau, Catalina and Hunter leading the way. Nonetheless, easily 20,000 Albins, Cape Dories, Catalinas, C&Cs, Ericksons, O’Days, Pearsons and other 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s 30-foot and smaller fiberglass cruising boats were built with no accommodation for ground tackle beyond bow chocks and a bow cleat or two.

Even if you favor slips or moorings over anchoring out, don’t be content with storing ground tackle in a cockpit locker. Having an anchor at the ready is a matter of safety. Whether there’s a danger of being blown onto a lee shore or swept onto rocks by currents should the motor fail, there are times when an anchor can be a life saver. It’s at these unexpected moments when timely deployment will be crucial, but that can’t happen if the rode and anchor are stored at the bottom of a locker buried beneath fenders, lines and old PFDs.

Rode Bags

The cheapest and easiest way to put this gear where it belongs is the combination of a rode bag and an anchor bracket, chocks or hangars. Rode bags are typically made with a waterproof mesh material that promotes drainage and drying. Some bags have rigid internal rings that retain the shape of the bag and help to keep it open when you need to feed the retrieved line and chain back into the bag.

Some rode bags have a slit at the bottom so you can pass the bitter end through and secure the end of the rode to a bow cleat before getting underway. This will prevent the embarrassing mistake of literally throwing out the anchor and watching the entire rode pay out over the side. A rugged clip, strap or lashing option is usually provided so the bag can be secured to the bow pulpit. You don’t want the bag and its contents rolling off the bow as the boat pitches and heels.

Strong webbing carry handles are a given, as the combination of rope and chain will weigh anywhere from 25 to 75 pounds (and even more once wet). Small bags suitable for sub-200-foot rodes cost less than $40. Larger bags cost $60 to $90 (all prices in this article are from various online suppliers in March 2025).

Anchor Brackets, Chocks and Hangars

A bag puts the rode up on the bow, but what about the anchor itself? There are three popular, low-cost options designed for the ubiquitous Danforth-style (a.k.a. Fluke) anchor. Plow, scoop and claw anchors will require a bow roller, for which there are myriad choices and more exacting installation requirements that are beyond the scope of this article (see “Clear the Decks: Anchor Wells and Bow Rollers”).

Anchor Brackets

Anchor brackets clasp the tripping palm of a Danforth-style anchor with the flukes and shank pointed downward (see photos). The combination of gravity and a proper fit on an inverted, trapezoidal palm keeps the anchor in place. If the shank doesn’t clear the deck, you can secure it to a stanchion with a webbing strap or use a chain lock to put tension on the rode to prevent swinging and unintended deployment. Windline’s bow-rail-mount and similar stanchion-mount brackets (see photos) are widely available for $60 to $70. The two clasps that hold the tripping palm are adjustable to accommodate different sized anchors.

Anchor Chocks

Anchor chocks, available for $50 to $70 from Sea-Dog and Whitecap, hold fluke anchors securely in place on deck with the combination of slots for the tripping palm and a short line secured around the cleat-shaped shank fitting. Ten holes will have to be drilled for the screw-mounted components, so pre-position these parts carefully for the specific anchor and desired deck location. To do it right, you’ll need to drill slightly larger holes, remove any coring material, fill the holes with epoxy, wait for curing, and then redrill for #10 stainless screws. Between drilling all those holes and the possibility of needing a new anchor with different dimensions down the road, I’d think twice before choosing anchor chocks.

Anchor Hanger

The last and easiest-to-install option considered here is Schaefer Marine’s stainless anchor hanger. Widely available for $80 to $90, the pair of hangars requires just two bolts to install on a 1-inch rail, with vinyl liners included to protect the stainless. The anchor hangs from the stock, so you place the two sides close enough together to make it impossible for one end of the stock to slip out of the hanger.

A quick-release gate on one side faces overboard and make it easy to drop the anchor. This option accommodates 8- to 22-pound anchors with ½-inch to ¾-inch stocks. As with the anchor bracket, a tie and/or chain lock can be used to prevent the anchor from swinging.

Security Concerns and the Hawse Pipe Option

A rode bag and anchor mounting option will it make it easy to move your ground tackle up to the bow, but it will also make it easy for a thief to walk away with all that expensive equipment. That prospect had this author dutifully moving the ground tackle from a locked cockpit locker up to the bow and then back again at the end of each sail. To avoid all that back and forth, consider installing a hawse pipe.

The beauty of having a hawse pipe (and/or a windlass) is that the rode will be stored below deck with only a bit of chain exposed. Given that chain is hard to cut and properly wire-seized shackles are hard to open, theft doesn’t seem to be a problem—as witnessed by all those expensive stainless anchors on display at your local marina.

V-Berth Size Restrictions

The hawse pipe option won’t work on a 20- to 22-foot boat in which the V-berth ends in a sharp point at the boat’s stem. If it’s a bigger boat and the foot of the V-berth meets a forepeak bulkhead with a bit of room behind it, you might be able to install a hawse pipe and have the rode drop down into the forepeak.

Indeed, the forepeak is the space given over to anchor lockers on modern boats, and builders often put a lot of engineering into the design, creating self-draining compartments that might also include a windlass. See “A Look at Anchor Lockers” to learn about design tradeoffs.

Before you put a hole in your deck, first determine whether there’s enough room for an appropriately sized rode for your boat and cruising grounds. To make the most of the room available, use an 8-plait anchor line, which is stronger yet more flexible and stores more compactly than 3-strand line. Check the fit (before drilling) by stuffing your rode into the forepeak.

Horizonal Windlass

You might also consider installing a horizonal windlass. Vertical windlasses are sleeker, but they require more clearance under the deck for the motor and wiring—space that likely won’t be available in the forepeak of a small boat. Horizonal windlasses place the motor up on deck. The installation instructions on leading (Maxwell and Lewmar) horizontal windlasses call for at least eight to 12 inches of clearance (respectively) between the bottom of the deck and the top of the piled-up anchor rode.

Weight Considerations

The next question is, will the weight of an anchor and rode (plus a windlass, if considering that option) throw off the balance of the boat? To weigh that question, simply place your intended rode and anchor (or equivalent weight) over the forepeak and gauge the impact on the waterline. A 300-foot, all-chain rode is likely out of the question, but my Albin Ballad 30 accommodated 200-feet of half-inch 8-plait anchor line and 20 feet of high-strength ¼-inch chain with nine to 12 inches of clearance below the deck and little impact on the waterline.

Drainage

The last question is, what’s the drainage situation in the forepeak and can you tolerate a bit of mud getting into the bilge (assuming that’s where the forepeak drains)? Hawse pipes generally include caps that minimize water intrusion from bow spray, but there’s also water from the soaked anchor line to consider.

Conclusion

When faced with these choices, I opted for the combination of a hawse pipe, a Schaefer anchor hanger and a lightweight Fortress anchor. To guard against moisture, I put extra coats of bilge paint on the hull sides inside the forepeak and extra varnish on the backside of the forepeak bulkhead. I also sealed the sides of the hawse hole with epoxy and bilge paint. I secured the end of the rode to a stem bolt inside the forepeak to avoid losing the entire anchor kit over the side. (Don’t secure the end of the rode to the forepeak bulkhead: The idea is to tie off a sufficient amount of rode to a bow cleat, but if mistakes happen, you don’t want the weight of your boat pulling against the bulkhead). As a finishing touch, I added a varnished mahogany-ply cover for the forepeak locker with the shape of the Albin star logo cut out to serve as an inspection and ventilation hole.

For now, I’m using an anchor ring and buoy for retrieval on the rare occasion when I use the hook. Should my habits change in favor of more anchoring instead of docking or mooring, I still have the option to add a horizontal windlass and bow roller. Windlasses offer the promise of safe, rapid retrieval even in crowded anchorages and inclement weather, but see “Alarming Trend Shows Minimal-Duty Windlasses Becoming More Common” for tips on windlass design and selection.