Turning a sail locker into an anchor locker

I am the new owner of a "Navy 44" by McCurdy & Rhodes, the 1991 version. Foam core fiberglass. I bought it in pretty much the same condition the Navy auctioned it off 18 years ago, all the owners of it between then and now just sat on it. (Definitely neglected, but still super solid because it's built like a tank.)

It has a sail locker up front, accessed from the v-berth, and no anchor chain locker. (The Navy just docked it at their docks at the Academy.)

I'd like to give the boat an anchor chain locker, and that sail locker is volunteering itself for the job. It is quite a bit bigger than an anchor chain locker would need to be (which makes sense, it's got a bunch of sails, I'll put them somewhere else).

I'd like for that anchor chain locker to be "self-draining", i.e. have the lowest point of it above the waterline, and a hole to drain it, as I've seen others do. To do this, I need to "shrink" the sail locker.

I'd like to use the same foam core as the rest of the boat, or whatever would be "best matched with" the foam core construction of the boat as it is.

I don't know how to go about this. Strength of what I build. Working with the existing structure of the boat. Best practices.

There are probably classes, or books, or ??? Is there a "fiberglassing 101" resource you'd all recommend?

I figured somebody would have already asked this question, but didn't find a thread in my search.

Thanks in advance!

Congratulations and welcome to the group

Personally I would not trust the typical inner skin over foam to withstand anchor chain abuse.

I would use plywood and a few extra layers of glass.

We need to know the weight of chain involved.
And the planned span of the new bulkhead.

As Blueknar mentioned, what are the specifics for the rode.
If the rode consists of a lot of rope, then you need a significant amount of free volume under the anchor winch to allow the rope to naturally lay into the anchor locker. Chain will pile into a smaller vertical height though not all the time.

I would consider a Drum Winch to minimize volume usage and perhaps allow the current sail locker to have its volume reduced by a lesser amount.
Certainly you will have to do some work to ensure that your attachement points will carry the load.

Main Site
Drum Anchor Winches https://www.ezanchorpuller.com/collections/anchor-winch
Specific pages
Selecting Your Drum Anchor Winch https://www.ezanchorpuller.com/pages/selecting-your-anchor-winch

RENEGADE HEAVY DUTY Series Drum Anchor Winches for Boats to 60' https://www.ezanchorpuller.com/collections/renegade-heavy-duty-series-drum-anchor-winches-for-boats-to-60

You could even mount this above the deck keeping all of your sail locker available or even have half the drum below the deck and half above or obviously all below the deck.

If you require more than the capacity that what is shown in the table, you could consider the chain sections with Dynema for the rope. EZ Anchor puller should be able to advise.

If you want to continue on your original quest, a capstan style winch, you could also call McCurdy & Rhodes as I am sure that they have clients who required a winch and could provide
the information that your require.

Also note that some capstan style winch manufacturers offer minimum free fall distances and measurements for their winches

The profile and plan views on Sailboatdata suggest that there is plenty of volume and depth to use a windlass.
It also appears that a locker bottom can be constructed that's above the WL and still have enough depth-of-drop for the rode to self-stow.
Please don't even think of a drum winch, they're ugly bulky monstrosities that ruin your foredeck, interfere with everything and pile all the weight up high.
They're often used on fish boats here in the PNW but have no place on a classic yacht such as the N44s.

Blueknarr said:

Congratulations and welcome to the group

Personally I would not trust the typical inner skin over foam to withstand anchor chain abuse.

I would use plywood and a few extra layers of glass.

We need to know the weight of chain involved.
And the planned span of the new bulkhead.

Click to expand...

10mm short link chain is about a pound a foot / 350 feet = 350-ish pounds, and that's slightly conservative, if using chain from the anchor all the way to the winch.

What I have so far is a locker the shape of an upside down pyramid.
Two sides of which will be the hull (orange).
Two sides of which will be two new upside down triangles (green).
chain locker.png https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dh6MAexlOOzAAWCbDgm8EgOQfQVBdJQm/view?usp=sharing
=================================================================

Barry said:

As Blueknar mentioned, what are the specifics for the rode.
If the rode consists of a lot of rope, then you need a significant amount of free volume under the anchor winch to allow the rope to naturally lay into the anchor locker. Chain will pile into a smaller vertical height though not all the time.

I would consider a Drum Winch to minimize volume usage and perhaps allow the current sail locker to have its volume reduced by a lesser amount. Certainly you will have to do some work to ensure that your attachment points will carry the load.
...

If you want to continue on your original quest, a capstan style winch, you could also call McCurdy & Rhodes as I am sure that they have clients who required a winch and could provide the information that you require.

Also note that some capstan style winch manufacturers offer minimum free fall distances and measurements for their winches

Click to expand...

The direction I think I'm going is a Maxwell 10mm capstan winch -- horizontal -- HRC1010. On the deck (I've watched enough videos of "Sailing Uma" being miserable inside the chain locker that I want to minimize the amount of time I spend in there).

I also think I'll go with all chain, and/then a thick enough dock line (or lines) with a magnus hitch as a snubber. It's low tech, holds firm but releases easily, absorbs shock just as well as something with higher tech, less expensive, has less parts to fatigue and fail, and it can be replicated with resources found anywhere in the world, and also, seemingly reliable sources choose this method.

I'm designing the locker to hold 500 feet of 10mm chain with a 12" drop from the lowest part of the locker, but I'll only put in 350 feet myself. I did my first draft in Rhino, and was able to hit that mark with a bit of tweaking. This would allow somebody else to use at least some length of rope, or more chain.

(I'm also going to design it so the lowest part of the locker is in the middle of the locker, so the pile is RELATIVELY "evenly stacked", I'd guess this will give me still a little more room for error, and less tangles. I figured out how to do it, in a simple way, so why not?)

Attachment points - yes, working on this -- and/or Sailing Uma uses a monkey fist too big to come through the hawse pipe. Good? Not good? I suppose it depends on the strength of the deck and hawse pipe.

rangebowdrie said:

The profile and plan views on Sailboatdata suggest that there is plenty of volume and depth to use a windlass.
It also appears that a locker bottom can be constructed that's above the WL and still have enough depth-of-drop for the rode to self-stow.
Please don't even think of a drum winch, they're ugly bulky monstrosities that ruin your foredeck, interfere with everything and pile all the weight up high.
They're often used on fish boats here in the PNW but have no place on a classic yacht such as the N44s.

Click to expand...

Just trying to "common sense" this on my own, I came up with the same conclusions.

Maxwell HRC1010 is what I came up with, and "all chain", and regular dock lines with a magnus hitch as a snubber.
I can easily get room for 500 feet of 10mm chain and leave 12" drop, if I'm not off my rocker.

But... I'm making this up as I go, so I want to confirm I'm not out to lunch. : )

rangebowdrie said:

Please don't even think of a drum winch, they're ugly bulky monstrosities that ruin your foredeck, interfere with everything and pile all the weight up high.

Click to expand...

There is a drum mounted winch on this 21 foot boat, not ugly and not seen.

Derek_9103 said:

I'm designing the locker to hold 500 feet of 10mm chain with a 12" drop from the lowest part of the locker, but I'll only put in 350 feet myself. I did my first draft in Rhino, and was able to hit that mark with a bit of tweaking. This would allow somebody else to use at least some length of rope, or more chain.

(I'm also going to design it so the lowest part of the locker is in the middle of the locker, so the pile is RELATIVELY "evenly stacked", I'd guess this will give me still a little more room for error, and less tangles. I figured out how to do it, in a simple way, so why not?)

Click to expand...

The chain will fall into the locker but will eventually produce a cone profile pointed side up, then fall over and continue to produce another cone, which will then fall over. The chain will not
fill all of the void in the locker. We owned a 40 foot boat with a horizontal capstan with 325 feet of 5/16 chain and it would often have to have the cone spread when winching in the entire amount. Of course we did not always play out 300 feet of line, so when we did a full length winch in, we would spread the cone out a couple of times to ensure that we never had an issue.
If you have allowed for 500 feet of chain, you may be ok.
If you can access the chain locker from the cabin, ie not have to go onto the deck. It is not a big issue.

From Imtra a winch manufacturer (just an FYI)
"How big of an anchor locker do I need for an electric windlass?
As a general rule an anchor locker should have at least 16 inches of clearance from the underside of the deck to the top of the pile of your anchor rode. Anything less can cause the windlass to jam or tangle the rode up. For a vertical windlass with the motor and gearbox below deck, a deeper anchor locker is required than for a horizontal windlass where the entire windlass is on deck".

Four sides is more complicated than a simple thourtship bulkhead.

As mentioned you need an access hole to adjust the piling chain.

You will also need access to tab the interior

A cardboard mockup will be highly beneficial