I had onboard a friend of mine who is a mechanical engineer.
According to him, the stainless steel ring below (and the way it's attached to the hull and bolted to the towing eye on the other side) looks strong enough to be used also as a lifting eye.

In my view, it's clearly oversized to just secure the anchor chain, but I wouldn't bet that it can withstand the boat weight.
Any experiences on that? Has anyone actually used it to lift the boat?

Hi Paul,

Don't use that ring as a "lifting eye". Use a soft nylon heavy duty strap and run it though the eye on the outside front of bow.

You can put some towels around the rub rail when you lift to keep it from scratching etc...

That ring inside the locker is not for lifting.

Also, don't ever get in the habit of leaving an anchor in that locker for very long as it will tear the heck out of the boat while under way.

Thanks Jason.
Out of curiosity, do you know what it's there for? Can't believe it's just meant to secure the anchor chain...
Which I'm not using anyway, no need for it on the lake. The scratches you might have seen come from the previous owner.

I believe the bracket was put there due to the fact that the lifting eye was already planned in that same area. It's much easier, cheaper, and aesthetically pleasing to use studs from the eye vs. coming up with another mount that would be in the same basic area.

You can tell by the design that the load would not be shared evenly on the bracket... It's probably the easiest thing they found at the time to share the available studs from the eye.

You want a solid mounting point for securing the anchor. After all, you'd want to prevent it from moving as much as possible.

That ring is a solid mount to strap the anchor down on to..

On my -93 the deck cleat is attached to the front bow eye like in your pictures (no anchor locker on the earlier 27).
I figured Fountain designed it this way to be used for emergecy recovery of the boat. I would not use it for lifting purpose though.

Rule # 1..... Don't listen to engineers who are not boaters. And even then it still might not be a good idea. They over think things

Actually, it is a lifting ring.
http://www.foreandaftmarine.com/Bowliftingeyes.htm
http://www.halemarine.com/index.php?...oducts_id=1456


Don't listen to boaters that are not engineers. That ring itself could almost lift the full weigh of your boat alone. A little overkill for an anchor rope/tie down, don't cha think? But do as you feel safe. The inside ring is located there because of the location of the bow eye in relation to the locker hatch opening. Open hatch, connect chain, lift boat up. Remember, the front doesn't have the weight of the motor and drive.

Agreed,

But I would probably only do it in an emergency. That is the same type of setup on my pantera, except mine is mouted above the deck. I have seen way smaller thing used to crane boats at the races.

So then I'm wrong but I still would not use it. That ring is no were near as strong as the lifting eye itself. They look like two totally different grades of hardware to me but I'm not an engineer.