Foredeck Arrangement

[sanibel sailor]

I am looking at going cruising in a few years. While it is satisfactory for my current day sailing/racing needs, one of my Bristol 35.5's shortcomings is ground tackle management. I think she was set up to be sailed off a New England yacht club mooring her whole life. There is one anchor roller, not overly large, a couple of smallish unclosed chocks with square edge upper plates, an anchor well to which I have added a secure latch and enlarged the drain. The cleats are not too small, but they are along the toerail and cross the anchor well cover. There is no windlass or chainpipe.

I have a ABI bronze manual windlass that will fit in the well.

I am not too crazy about removing the stem fitting which incorporates the roller and crappy chocks and doubt that any welding could be done on it "in situ".

Looking for any thoughts on improving this arrangement. What would you do if she were your boat and your money.

[sanibel sailor]

More pics

[sanibel sailor]

Another pic

[sanibel sailor]

Roller

[sanibel sailor]

I have thought about whacking the top plate off these chocks and maybe tapping or thru-bolting a rounded, less chafe prone piece on top.

[JPA Cate]

Sanibel sailor,

If you're wanting to cruise where there is coral, your nylon rode is extremely vulnerable to chafe on the coral. We've actually met one couple who lost one boat from nylon chafe on coral, and went on to chafe another nylon rode through, but managed to save that boat. Maybe if you tell us the anchoring conditions you're expecting while "going cruising", or your destinations that you have in mind so far, that would help. But IMO, you need to have all chain rode for anchoring in coral.

The arrangement you have there used to be pretty often encountered in day sailors. One problem with it is there's nowhere to put chain. For a chain locker, you need a straight drop of 3-4 ft. from the windlass for the chain to flake itself. That means a huge modification, and most likely taking up a lot of room in the forepeak.

I'm sorry not to be more encouraging. I do not think it is necessarily a problem to have only one roller. You just want a sets well fast every time BIB anchor for it.
Your chocks will work okay.

Ann

[Pete7]

Looks like a fairly standard foredeck arrangement and very similar to ours.

The crossed ropes don't cause us any problems because we are either tied to a pontoon in which case we don't need the anchor locker or at anchor in which case the mooring ropes aren't needed.

As Ann suggested a decent anchor locker would help. How much room is there in the forepeak cabin to take the first 3 feet or so of space for an anchor locker. If it was 3 foot deep it would hold 60m of 8mm chain without any problems.

The CQR would have to go though as the first improvement.

Pete

[sanibel sailor]

My current rode works well here in FL where 10 feet is DEEP and it light for racing. My race crew nags me for keeping the anchor on the bow, but I think it is needed for safety. Always gotta have brakes. It is not my long term plan, which would be 150-200 feet or so of chain with another hundred or more of nylon behind it. Probably keep this as my secondary or stern anchor.

Plenty of room forward for chain. There is even a bit of room aft of the anchor locker and forward of the forepeak bulkhead if I wanted to deck mount the windlass. I had thought about making an athwartship divider in the forepeak and having a forward chainpipe, usually sealed, with my second light nylon rode coming up thru it.

I anticipate cruising the Carribbean, thru the Panama Canal and southwest from there, so yes to coral, sand, rocks, etc. Do not want this to turn into a "which anchor" discussion. That might have been touched on before on this forum.

[Hudson Force]

John, I posted a similar question with the thread, "Design Solutions for this Mess on my Bow" recently. My problems are somewhat different from yours, but I did get some very good advice here.

When I was looking at your photos and considering the available space for modifying cleat and chock leads I was thinking of positioning them aft to the location of your running lights. Moving these navigation lights higher on your bow pulpit would open up more space for your forepeak options.

[Terra Nova]

Yeah, the lights cry out to be relocated, higher. But that is another issue.

There appears to be no need to cross the mooring lines, even though the lead is not perfectly fair.

The sharp edges on the stem-head fitting parts can be radius'd and polished with a Dremel or die grinder.

[sanibel sailor]

The boat came with little round runabout sized sidelights. I put these bigger ones on and they do create more potential interference, but are much better for visibility. I also have a tricolor so the deck level lights are just for motoring. Moving them would require some sort of bracket or welding on the pulpit. I do not care much for putting it right at the midline forward part of the pulpit; seems to be in harm's way.

[roverhi]

If there is nothing below the anchor well or it can be converted to an anchor locker, cut out the well and glass in the deck. Install proper bracing for the future installation of a windlass as far back as it can be placed and have proper fall for the chain. Nothing like a proper vertical windlass with rope capstan as well as chain/rope gypsy to make anchoring a joy. Definitely wouldn't want a windlass buried in a dank chain locker.

You can radius the edges of the top plates and anywhere else you are worried about chafe with a die grinder. You'd probably burn out many Dremel tools before the job was properly done so think about renting a portable compressor and a die grinder.

The anchor roller looks adequate if its aft end is properly anchored. Don't like to put stress on the roller so use a pennant to take the strain of the anchor chain. If you are doing serious anchoring, would want a chain rode or at least a 100' or more of chain. That will give you 4-1 scope in 25' of water which will be a majority of your anchoring depth.

For deeper anchorages, minimizing chafe on the rope rode is an issue. If there is not enough meat on the stem plate to properly round the edges, you could possibly screw a short length of curved metal rub strake to minimize the sharp edge. Failing that, would probably have to remove the plate and weld a half piece of tubing to the edge of the plate.

[Stumble]

A couple of things come to mind...

1) if the cleats are on the toe rail then stop using the chocks and bring the lines directly to the cleat. It immediatly cleans up the fordeck as well as reducing chaff on the lines. The move to inboard cleats and relying on chocks is a terrible one.

2) if you have to use the chocks then it's better to cross them to the far side (usually) since it reduces the bend angle, and this reduces chaff substantially.

3) I would really recommend getting something like LEWMAR Anchor Lock | West Marine for the anchor, and stop pulling it up and to the side.

4) as has been mentioned for cruising you need either all or mostly chain. The only good answer is to build a chain locker. The longer the fall the better.

Good luck.

[sanibel sailor]

I see I have managed to not show the cleats, hidden by my whisker pole. They are inboard of toerail unfortunately.

[sanibel sailor]

My windlass is horizontal, bronze, and manual. It does not mind the dark and dank. There is room just aft of the locker to mount it on deck where the padeye is now. The fall would be into the most aft portion of the fore peak, about a 4 1/2 foot drop, but I was thinking of keeping it off the deck. One less thing to foul or trip over, although it would probably be easier to get a fair lead to it on deck.