If you can find a copy of National Geographic’s Men, Ships and the Sea (from the 60s, I think, or maybe early 70s), then you’ll have one of the best single references I’ve seen for drawings and descriptions of all kinds of early sailing vessels.
The primary anchor for most ships is normally located in the bow, so that the ship will be “head to the seas” as it lies and faces the wind or current, whichever has the stronger effect, and will normally ride over waves coming from the prevailing wind. Facing the stern to the waves can be a lot more dangerous.
That applies when the vessel is “anchored”, and the anchor is intended to hold ground and hold the vessel in place. A “sea anchor” is usually trailed astern of a vessel underway in severe weather, so that it will present its stern to following seas and slow the vessel deliberately. This is a tactical maneuver requiring constant vigilance to be sure the vessel isn’t swamped.
As conditions worsen and the vessel stops trying to run with the storm, then the sea anchor can be rigged from the bow as the vessel drifts and faces the winds and waves.
The other survival technique for vessels at sea in a storm (when conditions are too severe for “sailing”) is to simply “lie ahull”. That is, to take down all sails, close and batten all hatches, pull in all sea anchors and trailing lines and simply drift. This is very dangerous for modern sloops, and is usually only done when nothing else can be done (simple “survival conditions”), but was a surprisingly effective move with some of the old caravels. With their very high freeboard aft and the balance of the vessel, this enabled the hull itself to act as a kind of sail that helped stabilize the craft, enabling it to more or less hold a position as if it were hove to. (You’ll have to look up “heaving to” elsewhere; I’m not going to try to explain that here now.)