I've had some success running it from a bridle between bow and stern, so by adjusting the length of the stern line I can change the angle of the boat to the waves.  Sounds more difficult than it is, and with a slow drift it's easy to fish this way.  I've not tried a trip line, I just motor up to the thing (carefully!) and lift it aboard.

Matt, don't know if its the same on all boats but if I rig the sea anchor to the stern quarter cleat, the boat drifts sideways. I used to loop it around the outboard so it streamed from the centre, then I put a cleat on the transom right next to the outboard.

I've also found that any weather you can drift in without the drogue, you can drift in with the drogue. The drogue doesn't seem to make the problem of shipping waves into the boat any worse - and if there's a likelihood of shipping waves into the boat, then I bail out anyway, because that's when its getting dangerous, in my view.

I've never had to run it from the bow and hope the situation where it's necessary for survival never becomes an issue.

I have been "planning" to rig ours so that it is fastened to the bollard on the bow and then run it along the side and tag it to a stern quarter cleat with a line i can release with a single pull and then we would be sea anchored by the bow rather than the stern.

Reason being you don't want to be anchored by the stern if you are shipping any waves.  should it happen you have a mjor problem that needs resolving a minute ago. You don't want to be hauling a sea anchor to solve it.

The sea can get pretty nasty in a wind against tide situation, which is when i find the sea anchor most useful.

Having said all this, I have not actually done it yet.

Si I don't remember that tale. do tell.

Wefaknis

Good point Kingi,

I am not uknown to trawl a berley bag from time to time so must remember this!!! 

Cheers

Ab

Great tips here guys,

Sounds like using the launch rope and securing to the stern is a good place to start (with a "dump or tag" line).

Cheers again guys

Neil

Our deployment depends on the wind and tide. Sometimes we want the boat to face a certain direction or to travel a certain way (like when jigging) so we just set it up to help that. I must admit it's certainly easier to set the boat almost still when in deeper water and you don't want to let down a heap of anchor line. Especially when you just want to sit over a certain spot for 10 minutes. It also depends what size the sea anchor is and the weather conditions, there's plenty of times when you can only set it up over the bow for fear of taking a big wave over the side otherwise. We also use the launching rope, it lets the sea anchor out just far enough to ensure we don't get our tackle caught up in the thing.

Ross