1969 CC 57 Connie anchor

Thanks. That’s a lot of good information. I’m glad I joined this page!

 

Hi Michael - were you able to get to the boat to take some more photos please?
Not just of the anchoring arrangement, but some additional photos of the rest of the boat would be well appreciated on here.

 

That is a beautiful boat.. My good friend and co-worker, Peter Ball, N.A. (unfortunately he is no longer with us, RIP) was chief engineer at the Chris Craft factory in Florida in the 60's. He is even mentioned in a book about Chris Craft published in the 80's. He and I used to talk about these boats a lot. I think the Connie was their most beautiful model, and they sure do last. You have a real prize. Take good care of her and she will take good care of you. I think the book is the Legend of Chris Craft by Jeffrey L Rodengen, published in 1988.

 

There are currently 24 second hand copies available on Amazon, starting at $8.50 :
https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Chris-Craft-Jeffrey-L-Rodengen/dp/0945903022/ref=sr_1_2

There is also a second edition, published in 1993 apparently :
https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Chris-Craft-Jeffrey-L-Rodengen/dp/0945903200/ref=sr_1_1

And a third edition in 1998 - but they have only two copies of this, at $130......
https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Chris-Craft-Jeffrey-I-Rodengen/dp/0945903324/ref=sr_1_3

 

The previous owner left a very nice copy of that book onboard for me. I thumbed through it a bit, but look forward to sitting down and reading it one of these weeks while at sea.

 

Here are a few photos. I'll post some of the interior and engine room next time I go back down. I have shipwrights working on restoring the aft deck windows and cover support, while I'll get started on the teak decking.

 

Thank you for the photos Michael.

Do you have a chain (or chain and rope) cable for the Danforth anchor?
I see two foot switches (I presume one is for 'up', and the other is for 'down') for the anchor windlass, and the hawse pipe going through the deck down to the hull side - usually there would be a hole in the deck immediately aft of the chain gypsy for the chain to free fall down into the chain locker underneath.

Is that a cable locker hawsepipe cap at 10 oclock to the left of the windlass?
If so, then it looks like you have to feed the cable manually from the windlass to this pipe to stow it in the chain locker?
Would it be feasible to fit a pipe on the aft side of the windlass for the chain to fall down into the locker underneath?

Or alternatively, fit a vertical shaft windlass, rather than a horizontal shaft unit (like what you have)?
Here is a typical example :
Muir Storm VRC 2500 Vertical Windlass with Capstan https://defender.com/en_us/muir-storm-vrc-2500-vertical-windlass-with-capstan

 

Yes, there is a hole just to the aft side of the chain gypsy, leading down to a chain locker in the forward berth, and there is a chain in the locker. And you're correct, those are up and down foot switches. I've discovered the down switch has been disconnected from the windlass, so I don't know what's up with that yet. When I was considering buying the boat, the seller said the switch on the starboard side was to raise the anchor. I said, "Then I guess this one on the port side is to lower it", and he said, "No, that's just a dummy. It's never been connected to anything, and the anchor is just lowered by hand through the hawse pipe." WRONG! I'm going to get it working correctly again.

Same thing with other features on the boat. He said the trim tabs had never been connected to the controls because with a boat this size, getting onto plane is not really a consideration. I'm finding that this is not really true, either. The autopilot has been disconnected, and he said it worked but he disconnected it because he had the boat on a fairly small lake and the autopilot just annoyed him. That sounded so bizarre that I didn't even dive deeper into that explanation. I figured out pretty early on that he was just taking advantage of the fact that I was new to boating. However, I'm a retired engineer. Even though I don't know all the marine systems and the terms, I can figure some things out on my own, or at least know what questions to ask. And it frustrates me to see something just get disconnected because it stopped working, instead of fixing or replacing it.

It's got two radios in the helm, neither of which are working. They're original, 1969 vintage, so I'm guessing they probably have burned out tubes and they just didn't know how to diagnose the problem. I can.