The above photo of a Dayak from a few years ago shows a ..... hole in the boat from deck down through the floor right behind the rower's seat, for the anchor. It seemed like a good idea. If the anchor pulled from closer to the center of the boat I thought I'd be able to anchor up in fast water without the boat fishtailing left and right in the current.
That part worked but it slowed the boat down too much. So now I'm patching it up, so the bottom is smooth again. I think I'll hang the anchor off the front of the boat rather than the rear, so the anchor rope doesn't have to go through a pulley. So it will be easier to pull.
I have an April 21st launch on the Green with Dave Inskeep and company. I need to get this little boat ready by then. That's a white water trip so I won't even take an anchor down there. Anchors are for fishing. They're too dangerous to have on board in big water.
So I had to patch a 10" inch by 14" inch hole. But the bottom isn't flat. That's a curved piece of the bottom. It's a little hard to tell from this photo. But I put visqueen on the bottom of the boat and molded a 3/4" piece of Plascore right on the boat bottom. Put visqueen on top. Then a scrap of masonite and some paint cans to weight it down. Tomorrow I'll patch the hole in the bottom. The day after that the hole in the deck. But at least the deck is flat, so I don't have to mold that one.