Ralph, You are certainly right about the location of the hawse pipe. But even with a properly located pipe, wet three strand nylon doesn't always drop smoothly. It tends to snarl and hockle and occasionally requires a trip below to untangle it to pull it back out of the line locker. Besides, wet rope tends to smell. On my Westerly Nomad twin keel sailboat, a boat in which we did the Loop 20 years ago, I don't have an anchor winch. I have an anchor wench. My wife hauls and sets the anchor while I tend to the motor and sails.. Dropping the wet rode in a milk crate is far more convenient than trying to stuff it through a small hole. When setting the Danforth or Fortress anchor we never simply drop it overboard. We lower it gently until it hits the bottom, then back down, paying out line to about 3 times the water depth to set it. Then we adjust the scope to about 7 times water depth. Since we anchor frequently in areas of reversing current flow we often use two anchors in a Bahamian or bow and stern mode. Never had any problem with anchors failing to reset. I've had more problems with plough and Bruce anchors. It's not the equipment so much as how you use it. Larry Z