What are the things you need to watch out for?

• Not enough scope -NEVER, EVER try to deploy this rig if you do not have at least 2:1 scope (or more) on your anchor line. If you don't have enough scope, the anchor line will be too vertical.
  
  In this situation, the float and anchor line will get pulled under the boat and into the prop as you drive off, with the obvious disastrous results. To date, we have chewed up one float, and severed the float painter once doing just that. Fortunately, we were able to recover the ring both times, since the carabiner kept the ring on the rode. If you do not see the rode off to the side of the boat initially when you drive off, STOP and let out some more line before taking off
  
  
• Not driving off at the right angle - the boat has to be driven off at a 45 degree angle to the rode. Again, this prevents the rode from being pulled under the boat.
  
  
• Not pulling the anchor stock into the ring - This was the biggest problem we had initially, and it took us a while to figure out what the cause was. It turns out that the main problem was using a shackle to connect the rode to the chain.   
  
  If you use a shackle to connect your anchor rode to the chain, the shackle will get caught a lot on the ring. If that happens, you will not be able to pull the chain through the ring any further, and when you stop, the chain and the anchor will fall back to the bottom.
  
  We got around this by splicing the rode directly to the anchor chain. We opted for creating the absolute smallest profile eye splice, so we did not include a thimble to guard against chafing. We were concerned that the extra bulk of the thimble might prevent the chain from making it through the ring again, but in retrospect, we were probably being too paranoid. In any event, we regularily check the current splice for chafing, and will try the thimble when we have to replace the eye splice.
  
  The shackle connecting the chain to the anchor can also get stuck in the ring, but we've found that if that occurs, the weight of the anchor chain is usually sufficient to prevent the anchor from falling back.
  
  
• Not enough room to drive forward - You need a considerable distance in front of the boat in order to do this right. If you are in a tight anchorage, you might not be able to get enough scope and / or be able to run a long enough distance forward to lift anchor to the float.
  
  
• Stopping too soon - If you stop before the anchor stock seats in the ring, most of the time the anchor will simply fall back to the bottom, dragging the rope back down with it. You can tell this is happening because you will see the float move towards the boat after you stop.
  
  The only exception will be the occasions where you have a length of chain through the ring, but not the anchor stock. Under these conditions, the chain that has gone through the ring may be heavy enough to keep the anchor from falling back.
  
  How do you know when to stop? On Toy Boat 2, the float will drag forward a bit when we start, and occasionally disappear briefly below the surface. When the anchor makes it into the ring, the float and anchor dive under the surface, and stay under. When you stop the boat, the float will resurface with the anchor. There is a caveat to this - you can sometimes get the same effect if the anchor chain gets stuck before it goes through the ring (see the third point above).
  

If your anchor is stuck in the bottom, this rig may help get the anchor out, because it is pulling in a slightly different direction than the anchor was originally set in. If necessary, you can also pull from a completely different direction using this rig, just like you would if you did not have this rig attached. But you do need to be careful! Driving off too fast with the anchor stuck on a rock could potentially cause a skiff to flip or swamp.