Projects..Anchor Locker

 Windlass and Anchor locker 

The boat came with a single Simpson Lawrence manual windlass, 60 feet of 3/8 bbb chain and 200 feet of 7/16 nylon rope as the primary bower. The 35lb Bruce holds well but the manual part was getting to be a bit tough on me so I installed an electric windlass. The Lewmar Pro-Fish 700 lb delivers 88 fpm without breaking a sweat. It also has the fast release feature should you want to drop it faster. Some folk have disparaged this brand, but it has worked for me for 11 years so far, can't complain. I do pull the boat as opposed to motoring up for a vertical pull...if done with care it is not a problem. Doesn't take much to get the boat moving even with an opposing wind. The first mate is generally at the helm in case of problems though. The manual will still work should there be a failure. 

The Bomar hatch. The lift handle broke right where the pin goes through the shaft and had to be replaced. Otherwise it gives plenty of room to get into the locker for cleaning etc. The locker is not especially roomy and so I must watch that the chain doesn't pile up and jam the windlass. 

That is 220 feet of G4 1/4 chain. In the bag is 200' of polyester rope spliced to the chain. I generally put out 150 feet no matter what when we anchor in 40' or less then adjust for conditions. 

The Starboard plate bolted and 5200 caulk to the deck holds the windlass in place. On occasion I have come up short with a hard set before getting the short snubber on the chain but this hasn't caused any problems with the placement although I wouldn't want to stress the windlass gypsy and shaft by doing that too often. Have seen some boats that have yanked the windless right out of the locker.

This is the low cost version of the control switch..just a common three way rocker that I covered with a cast  exterior switch plate on the gunwhale.

I figured that one small hole in the gunwhale as opposed to two holes for the commercial foot switches that are commonly used. Not to mention the cost of those packages. But you can get cheaper ones on amazon eh...

The SS anchor holder extension. The seadog SS swivel is rated at 2000lb WLL which is a little less than the chain at 2600 but the best I could find short of titanium that would fit the chain. I should have had an enlarged link welded in. However I think it is pretty hard to put that much force on an anchor line without really trying. I use the grab hook in settled conditions. When it is going to blow hard and there is a long fetch ahead of us I add a 3/4 brait snubber about 30 feet long. 

The Bruce. I will probably get a Mantus 45 lb one of these days. Bigger is better.

The scupper..one each side piped to a through hull.

I use the Simpson Lawrence as a King post.

This is the Lewmar control switch at the cockpit helm station. The other button is a remote engine start. I painted the cockpit last summer with Interlux Brightside paint as you can see. When I single hand I can see the chain from the cockpit and watch for the depth markers..sometimes I will count off the seconds but either way can lay out the chain  while drifting back then walk up and lock it off before going back to set the hook. Retrieval I do at the bow.

So the entire fore triangle was formerly a hinged triangular door with a 3 or 4 inch margin all around and level when closed with the rest of the sunken area. The water from that area would flow under the door and theoretically exit through the anchor locker scupper which is 1/2 inch diameter. In reality, on this boat, the water dripped down under the door and onto the bulkhead. When there was a bit of mud and shell brought up with the chain and not cleaned, and then the boat suffered normal PNW weather, the anchor locker flooded due to the tiny scupper being plugged by debris. End result was a rotten bulkhead that required replacement in the forward berth. So to remedy this I bolted said door down through the wood and fibreglass molding by cutting 3/4 inch marine plywood to fit the whole fore triangle then cutting and hole drilling out the access hole for the water tank and the hatch. I then lined up the piece of starboard with the windlass template on and bolted that through the works after the fibreglass mat had been laid on the plywood. The SS anchor holder extension had been placed prior to all of this as well. Once all the epoxy paint had been applied to the faired mat, two coats of Interlux primer and two of two part Interlux topside I reset the water access, and set in the hatch and caulked the starboard with 3M 5200 caulk prior to bolting it down. I ran two 4 gauge cables from the solenoid switch that comes with the windlass right aft by the battery compartment all the way under deck to come up through the water pipe aperture into the anchor locker. I also ran a separate 14 gauge dual cable to operate the bow controller via the same route. The heavy 4 gauge cable ensures that adequate power is received at the windlass with no wire overheating. I have had no issue with this set up. I solder and crimp all wire joints. 

 

 

Just pulled the chain and rope out to switch the chain and re splice the rope. The chain is nine years old now. With several hundred deployments on it. It is showing some surface rust on the first 130 or so feet but no large flakes. Good quality Yankee steel. Tried a different style of splice this time..quite a bit easier to do and supposedly results in > than 95% strength retention. Which would still make the rope pretty strong..testing has been done which has shown that failure does occur at the bend of the rope to chain, however at that failure there is significant distortion of the chain links. This means that the amount of force required for failure is truly large..larger than what could be expected in any anchoring scenario. From the research I have previously done on rope strength and chain strength I can see that the ultimate strength of polyester rope spliced in this fashion to high test G43 chain is considerable. Nylon rope has some more elasticity..a few percent compared to polyester but has some deficiencies as well. The smaller chain size does seem to have reduced strength compared to 5/16 chain but the overall strength is still very good. When the time comes to replace the windlass and chain, I may

 go up one size in an abundance of caution but am not going to run out and do that just yet. 

In fact I may just stay with the 1/4 high test. It looks like I will be replacing the chain before the windlass anyway. I had alot of rust with the chain on the first hundred feet and may just cut that off and go with more rope rode for a while. I attempted to ameliorate the rust using Corroseal and it worked but in the transformation the magnetite caused the chain to jump on the gypsy in some spots and I don't like that action on the windlass. 

Update

As it turned out G43 chain came on sale so I got two hundred feet. I was able to salvage 60 feet and will c link that to the back end. I will then just connect rope as required with a Wichard D link. Not often that more than a couple of hundred feet is needed. I also have upgraded the snubber with a Mantus chain hook attached to a thirty foot doubled 3/4 inch nylon brait line that runs to the two forward cleats. I suffered some serious chafe with the single line snubber that followed the chain over the bow roller during one Ill chosen stormy anchorage so this new system has proven to be far less prone to any chafing action . I decided to go with attaching more rode as needed rather than keeping a permanent spliced on chunk because I have only used the extra twice and once was in calm water. Thus I will free the anchor locker up and keep the extra rope in a better environment.