Help Design my Anchoring System

Re the storage lockers on the bridgedeck in the photo below (with the 3 white access hatches) - do they have partitions between them?
I am wondering if it would be possible to fit a small Lewmar vertical shaft windlass (as per the link below) on the bridgedeck on the forward side of the port side hatch cover?
Lewmar V700 Vertical Windlass Kit with Anchor Rode https://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|2276108|2276145|2276147&id=7659414

Alternatively, maybe it could be fitted on the portside of the centreline hatch cover?
One advantage of the latter option would be that the windlass could be installed a bit further back from the forward edge of the locker, resulting in a deeper 'fall' for the cable (which should reduce the risk of it piling up in a cone underneath?).
The windlass would have to be mounted on a wedge, in order to line it up correctly with a roller attached to the aluminium cross beam.

Re your bridle, I see pad eyes attached to the stems - could the bridle ropes be attached to these?

 

If you want a spool type windlass in a locker there is no need to pay big money. Use an off road vehicle one fitted with a bigger drum, or an industrial type, and paint it regularly. If you want to mount it externally (like under the cabin), get a PTO type and mount the electric motor in the locker with the shaft exiting trough a small stuffing box.

 

A couple of comments to using a 12 volt (or there are some 24 volt winches out there) automotive type winch and increasing the drum size.

A marine windlass has the motor pretty well sealed to keep a humid environment out which can cause corrosion on the brush holders which will/can over time keep the winch from working. \
Most of the smaller winches, it utility style, 1500 pound range have a very small drum and the cost and manufacturing to increase the size to hold say 200 feet of rope/chain, would be quite an undertaking. Normally these winches do not have an actual brake as such so you would have to tie off the rode every time. These winches usually rely on the resistance of the planetary gear set up to provide braking and you will notice on most winches in this category, that they will suggest not to use the winch to hold a load. The reason is that in the correct conditions the "inertia brake" will let the load slip. ( ie "do not use the winch to hold a load", there is normally another caveat that never use the winch to hold a vertical load but that is more a safety issue to reduce liability claims in the event of failure.

Additionally, not all the cheap utility winches offer a clutch to permit a free fall.



Winches that are used to lift and hold a vertical load are called hoists, have a specific brake and at least a factor of safety of about 4 and I have not seen a hoist that would offer a free wheeling clutch)


A automotive winch capacity rating is developed on the first layer of cable on a winch. So if the diameter of the drum is small, it does not take many wraps until the increasing diameter reduces the lift capacity of winch. So increasing say a drum that has 1500 pound rating and a 1 1/2 inch diameter drum hub and putting on cable so that the last wrap is say 12 inches reduces the winch pulling capacity by 1.5 / 12 x 1500 to 187 pounds on the final wrap. You will need a large drum to carry 200 feet of rope/chain

And these winches are slow, depending on the manufacturer an estimate is about 4 to 6 feet per minute. So 200 feet of line / 5 fpm = 40 minutes in a full loaded condition. Obviously you would not be fully loaded but this point needs to
be considered. Most winch manufacturers will list a fpm speed with the appropriate load and of course with the larger diameter, the rope speed will increase.

These comments are intended only to put some of the potential issues out for consideration on doing a conversion

The area where we boated required that we anchored maybe 90% of the time. We have had the anchor slip, we have had neighboring anchors slip and disengage ours and in the darkness that exists where there are no street lights, we have had to pull our anchor and been happy that we could continue to drive/position the boat, get the h___ out of the way and lift the anchor at the same time.

So a Maxwell RC-8, windlass looks to be about a $1,600 cost and one of the direct non-free fall EZ Anchor drum style costs about $2,200. Maybe less at boat show time.

With the Maxwell, you will need the specific marine rope and a specific marine chain which costs bucks. With the EZ Anchor, any rope, any chain (within reason) will be cheaper and reduce the difference between. So not a lot of difference. But if you go up to the Rebel with Freefall, my choice, (get over your spot and free fall drop the anchor before wind, wave and tides moves you off) runs maybe $2,800 producing a difference of $1,200

We consider an anchor an important piece of safety equipment.

 

Barry, I am not talking about some joke token winches as you describe. Serious offroad winches have ratings exceeding GWWR and can actually hold that load (after all the entire vehicle hangs on the winch), external brakes, clutches, waterproof housings, etc. Their only problem is speed and corrosion resistance in salt water.
Just to be clear, I don't advocate the use of reel winches of any kind on a small boat, they are far to bulky if one has a serious lenght of chain or rope.

 

I gave up on the car winch idea after 15 minutes of looking. I have a very nice locker available. Why can't I spend a grand on a deck mounted windlass and call it good? How much is the chain gonna cost n weigh for 200'?

 

and what size of winch would you recommend. Choose Warn, a US made product throughout most of their product line

 

200' of 3/8" 3B chain weigh 330lbs. Cost depends where an what you buy, but probably around 800-1000USD.
If you actually need that much chain is another discussion.

 

As I said, I don't recommend any reel winch, but I know what you are trying to say. Any remotely suitable candidate is well over 1000$, plus other fabrication costs, and it's still not an optimal thing, so one should better buy a made for purpose product, it's not actually that expensive.

 

I chose the 1500 capacity because I would not want a winch capable of pulling the boat under water if the contactor stuck or the input control signal switch would not release. I realized that the size of the winch etc would be a bit light.
A Warn winch as most in the light truck class with the 4 bolt mounting system would be difficult to increase the drum size only because they use tie bars to stabilize the winch in the mounting plate. As the increased drum size would entail removing the tie bars, a complete new mounting system would need to be built to try to get the 2 bolts per side, motor side and the opposing gear train side stabilized.

I chose Warn as we sold both Warn and a Chinese take off and know the reliability of the two sources. One I would trust my life with, the other source, well, I would trust your life with but take out an insurance policy.

The winches that have an integral sprag bearing type load sensitive cone brakes can be troublesome in that if you pull the anchor into a bowsprit which will activate the brake, they
frequently will not release when you put the winch into reverse.

Addendum: Most light truck winches have a load activated brake. Ie the load in the line actuates the brake system. The motor is on one side of the winch and the planetary gear train is on the opposite side. Say the motor drives the shaft at 2000 rpm, just a number, the motor has a shaft that goes from its side through the middle of the drum to the planetary gear side reduction and this gear side drives the drum. The load actuated cone clutch sits on the square shaft between both ends within the drum hub diameter . So the shaft and brake are turning 2000 rpm, and the drum is turning 100 rpm with a 200:1 reduction, the numbers are only for easy calculations.
You can see that the difference would cause friction between the brake, Ie the inside is turning at 2000 and the outside is turning at 200 at the drum interface. The sprag bearing permits the differential. This above part of the explanation is for winching a load in. The minute the winch stops, the motor shaft stops, the load tries to take cable off the drum, but the brake expands and the bearing locks up the system.

So what happens when you try to put the winch into reverse WITH A LOAD on it.

The brake still senses the load so it is activated, the bearing is still in anti reverse lock in, so the brake must slip to accommodate the difference between the shaft rotational speed of 2000 and the gear reduced drum speed of 200. Ie it slips under load and over time wears out the brake.

This is one of the reasons that a winch designed for a light truck should never be used as a hoist which needs to reverse with a load attached. The winch and chain could permit the brake to actuate in reverse

Fall Guys construction does not allow easily a reel winch but perhaps under the port hatch. It appears that he is going with chain because chain will "cone" up less or slip easier into the narrow hull than a bunch of rope. If he had a large enough rope locker and enough room beneath the windlass and the finished height of the rode, certainly a combination rope-chain would be less costly and lighter.


We had a 34 foot Silverton for many years, with 300 feet of chain and an anchor designed for a 50 footer. Then I got it hooked onto a rock and had to cut the chain. Purchased galvanized regular chain (trying to save a buck) and a new $1000 anchor and the gypsy would not handle the chain. We paid more for the new gypsy compatible "marine" chain than the anchor. Got another lesson

 

Go for it - even the small Lewmar mentioned in my previous post above should be fine, so long as you do not try to pull the boat up to the anchor with the windlass - ie you should motor forward as you recover the chain.
What type of bottom will you be typically anchoring in, and what would the depth usually be?
I don't think you need to have 3/8" / 10 mm chain - 8 mm chain would be fine if it is the higher strength chain.
You might be able to 'get away' with say 100' of chain, and another 150' of multiplait rope spliced in to it?
And have a kedge anchor (or two) as well - aluminium Fortress anchors are light weight and good for this purpose.
You could perhaps have 20' of chain and 150' of rope. If you go for multiplait again rather than 3 strand, it will be easier to coil and be softer / more flexible.

 

how does the windlass deal with the rope?

 

The gypsy grips the rope and just winds it in - I was skeptical as well until I saw one in action.
It does put some wear on the rope though, and you need to do a rope / chain splice (rather than use a shackle with a thimble in the rope), so the joint can go through the gypsy.
And in retrospect you would have to check to confirm if multiplait can work with a gypsy, instead of 3 strand rope - if it can, it is much nicer rope to deal with.

 

The Lewmar 700 has some bad reviews online.

Do I need to build a nest for the lines? The locker is quite big and purposely not level to water to force water aft..

 

Maybe get the next size up?
Or one from Maxwell or Lofrans - there are so many different types available, with vertical or horizontal shafts.

Re the Lewmar 700, if you treat it nicely, and don't ask it to work too hard (like pulling the boat up to the anchor), then hopefully it should last a while?
Defender even have a special deal on this, including a rope / chain cable combo - if you want more chain than this, you could keep this rode for your kedge anchor?
Lewmar V700 Vertical Windlass Kit with Anchor Rode https://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|2276108|2276145|2276147&id=7659414

And then just buy say 150' of 1/4" G4 chain - here they say that this chain has a breaking load of 7,700 lbs.
https://www.amazon.com/US-Galvanized-Windlass-Anchor-Chain/dp/B07WTXB1XB

I don't think you would have to do this - they say that this windlass uses 1/2" diameter 8 strand multiplait, and it should self stow reasonably well in the locker?
You could have mostly chain, enough so that you have an all chain rode for your 'typical' anchoring depths, and have a length of rope as a back up for if you ever have to anchor in deeper water?

 

as bajansailor stated the gypsy is designed to handle both BUT you need to buy the model from the manufacturer that has the rope/chain combination gypsy as some manufacturers have chain only or the combination.
Also that the gypsy is sized for a specific chain and rope diameter

I had mentioned that I had seen a distance required between the bottom of the gypsy and the finished height of the rope pile. The rope or chain when coming from the windlass basically just free falls into the locker and requires a bit of distance to permit the rope to expand to use up available space. Chain will slip over itself and assume a lower level, but rope may not. I have checked a couple of windlass sites to pull this info out for FG to look at but could not find a reference to the height though the last windlass we installed had this height in the installation instructions. Bajansailor recommended a more flexible rope than 3 strand which would more than likely spread out or pile wider.