Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

So this will be the first weekend I am actually gonna toss the anchor. Taking a friend fishing.

Anyways, I have chain on my anchor and then rope. I have yet to tie it to the eyelet on the front of the boat. Which kind of knot do you guys recommend?

I have a cleat off to the side and run line through bow eye then over to cleat,

Is the eyelet on the deck of the boat or are you talking about the eyelets on the front of the pontoons? Run the line through the eyelet then tie off to a cleat. Want a knot you can tie (and untie!) FAST. We mounted this anchor tie-off on the bow, just have to run the line into it. Called a stop cleat or something. Works great.

Good luck fishing! Hope you catch some big ones!

Our eyelet is on the boat deck on the front. I wont tie anything to the toon eyelets ( I don't have any) if I have them. I heard bad things

Bad things- absolutely! Though I can't figure out why those thing are on the pontoons. I'd never use 'em.

It's Monday now, did you catch some fish?

The factories use the eyelets welded to the front of the toons, and the rear eyelets, we use our transom straps on, to crane the boats onto the semi trailers for delivery to the dealerships. I watched them when they loaded my Manitou on the semi to have the toons replaced. Then the dealership lifted it from the semi and onto my trailer, when I got it back from the factory. It was pretty cool to watch. I was a tad bit nervous seeing it lifted onto the semi. But they made it look real easy.

Take a good close look at yours. Mine looks like it's attached to the front deck but if you look under my deck it's bolted to a very thick aluminum strap that is bolted to the first 4 cross beams. It's put there to winch your boat up onto the trailer so I'm pretty sure it could handle any load your anchor might put on it IMHO. I run my anchor line through it also if I want to go straight back. If I want to swing left of center I tight it straight to my right bow cleat and if I want to swing right of center I tie the line straight off my left cleat.

landlockedsailor wrote:Bad things- absolutely! Though I can't figure out why those thing are on the pontoons. I'd never use 'em.

It's Monday now, did you catch some fish?

I did! I tossed my first line and .......



a 10lb Catfish. only my 2nd time fishing! I threw him back because frankly, I wouldn't eat anything from the Chain lol



I have purchased 2 cleats to put on either side of the deck. However I am gonna wait until I pull her for the season and find a nice guy who I can pay in beer to install them

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I have purchased 2 cleats to put on either side of the deck. However I am gonna wait until I pull her for the season and find a nice guy who I can pay in beer to install them [/quote]

........Did somebody say beer??

its my preferred method of currency

Speaking of beer as currency, one of my nieces has a Jeep Wrangler that we discovered had a broken frame in the front. (How the front end didn't fall out, I have no idea.) Anyway, I have a friend who is a welder. I asked him if he would take a look at it and weld it up for her. He looked and said he'd fix her up for $100.

The day after she dropped it off, he called to say it was done. My niece had noticed the brand of beer my friend drinks when she dropped the Jeep off, so in addition to the $100, when we went to pick it up she took him a case of his favorite beer as a thank you for getting it done so fast.

In my 40+ years of knowing this guy, I have never seen him smile as quickly as when she handed him that case of beer.

NICE cat keep up the good work and yes fishing can be work sometimes. Great to see you are enjoying life in the slow lane.

katieclooney wrote:Our eyelet is on the boat deck on the front. I wont tie anything to the toon eyelets ( I don't have any) if I have them. I heard bad things

Huh ? If those eyelets won't hold anchor, or any other thing for that matter, then you have an issue with those toons. Those are factory welded, stronger than the front eyelet and used for lifting also...

dockside wrote:

katieclooney wrote:Our eyelet is on the boat deck on the front. I wont tie anything to the toon eyelets ( I don't have any) if I have them. I heard bad things

Huh ? If those eyelets won't hold anchor, or any other thing for that matter, then you have an issue with those toons. Those are factory welded, stronger than the front eyelet and used for lifting also...

Someone post on here that they (or a friend) used the eyelet on the toon to moor and due to high winds and choppy water ripped it from the toon, thus causing a giant hole in it and caused it to sink. Hence, I wouldn't use that eyelet to tie up

Hey Katie, I remember reading that too. My take-away from the thread was that the eyelets welded to the toons are there for lifting during manufacture. They would support that type of a load fine (since that's what they are designed for), but may not take extreme side-to-side loads. They would also probably be fine for strapping to a trailer winch as that again is not side-to-side loads.

However, using the eyelets for towables (which would result in side-to-side loads if you tow tubes like I do) is not a good idea, nor is using them to tie up off to the side of a dock where the risk of excessive side loads could be present in the case of storms, tide changes, or other excessive non-linear loads.

With that said, on a typical day on the water using the eyelets to tie an anchor to should not be a problem, especially if it is just going to hold you in place without a lot of stress placed on them. However, if you have thrown out the anchor and are hoping to ride out a storm and want the eyelets to keep you in place, I would agree that using them might be of concern.

As I said, that's what I took away from the former discussion. When I got my boat (with a center toon), the dealer had the trailer winch connected to the toon eyelet, and I have used it for that purpose ever since. I do have cleats that I use for anchors, though.

Sounds like you have been reading and taking to heart the information you have been given in the past. Much better than the boater that thinks they know it all only to find out too late that they don't. Good luck, and happy boating.