New Anchor Bracket

[Bushwacker]

Decided to follow FredH's lead and move anchor off deck on to a roller bracket. Finally got the new anchor bracket installed that I picked up down at Dania flea market. It's rated for a 65 lb anchor, so it's a bit of overkill for my dinky 9# anchor, but for $40 I figured it was well worth it.

Here's the old setup, with anchor chocked on deck.

Also picked up some nice LED lights to put on cabin sides to replace the combo bow light.

New setup. Underside of deck was reinforced with 2 layers of 3/8" plywood/epoxy-cabosil beneath the center cleat/bracket and an additional 1/2" plywood underneath bow cleats. Will also allow mounting a windlass up there if I get too old or lazy to haul the anchor myself! Was surprised that there were no backing plates underneath the bow cleats!

Bracket has ears on it below the front roller that keep the flukes from bouncing up and hitting hull in rough seas. Also went to 20' of anchor chain to improve chances of anchoring offshore with only 300' of anchor line. For shallow water, just let out the chain, and that anchor is REALLY planted!

[McGillicuddy]

Thanks for sharing, Denny. Looks nice. No plates backing the aft cleats, either. I'll change that before towing or getting towed - God willin'...

Can you post or send some pics from directly overhead and underneath so I can view your bolting pattern and backing board design?

Told sis in JAX I might come see her kids this Sept or Oct so I might try to work trip around the 'cotee R gathering. I made some charts of the area a few years back and would love to see if my GPS nos. are productive. Sep-Oct is probably very good fishing there...hopefully a few yankee snook still hanging around with the reds, and find some gags on the reefs... gettin all giddy...

[Bushwacker]

Can you post or send some pics from directly overhead and underneath so I can view your bolting pattern and backing board design?

Top View


Bottom View


If you're gonna do this, first pull out the plywood bulkhead between anchor locker and cabin for better access, as it's a long reach up to those cleats and bow light! I used some HD aluminum foil to make a "mold" of raised underside of toe rail area to determine thickness needed for cleat backer boards that would make them flush with rest of deck. 1/2" plywood was perfect. The deck has a fair amount of crown in it, so needed a couple of thinner 5/16" pieces that would conform to it. They're basically 15" squares with an extension on aft end to cover the center cleat area. All holes in cored deck were drilled oversize, filled with thickened epoxy and then re-drilled to required size. Wood got one coat of epoxy, then a layer of thickened epoxy on top to bond it to deck or previous layer. Used bolts sprayed with WD-40 in the holes to hold wood pieces to underside of deck till epoxy cured. Also used wedges and a bottle jack to force 15" squares to conform to crowned deck. The wood pieces were installed in 3 separate steps over 3 days to let epoxy cure and redrill holes before installing next layer. Used fender washers under all nylock nuts. The whole deck is real solid now, although it had no soft spots before! Should easily hold a windlass if it's ever needed.

Gillie, if you ever tow some one, just use the towing eyes in the transom, not the deck cleats. I have 20' lines hanging on each stern cleat with snap hook on one end snapped to towing eye, with an eye spliced in other end. Then just uncoil the two lines to make a bridle that the towee can hook to. If you're being towed, for our Bahama trips, we used to run the anchor line down thru a carribiner hook or shackle on the bow eye and then back up to the deck with a snap hook on end of it; if you need a tow, just hook to bridle on companion boat. If you're towing offshore and the seas get big, you want a looong tow line so it has some stretch to it to accomodate the shock that will occur when the boats get out of phase with the waves, ie., when tower is going down face of a wave while towee is trying to climb up backside of a wave. With that set-up you can rig to tow or be towed very quickly. This can be a significant safety factor because Murphy says that when you do break down, it'll be in the middle of a thunderstorm with rain coming in sideways and blowing like hell!

[McGillicuddy]

Denny, thanks for posting pics and the advice, too.

Still working on the scuppers let them dry all week and now debating how much wood to chew away and what tool to use. I cleaned the wood up with a 1" brass pipe brush I stuck in a in a drill.

I kind of want to leave the glass holes intact and just fill the existing open wood pores with straight epoxy, followed by a thickened filler/fairing coat on the inside of the holes before inserting the 4200 saturated brass tubes and flaring. I keep thinking I want to seal them up but get hung up on that because then the wash-down drainage becomes an issue.

[Bushwacker]

For tools, if you have a flexible extension for a Dremel tool, they make a metal disk coated w/abrasive that will just barely fit thru the hole and it'll chew the wood away pretty easily, especially if there is much rot. Sounds like the wood in yours is in pretty good shape; mine had large chunks missing on one side, and initial fill didn't work . . it just leaked out thru the gaps! If you hit it with some alcohol, the wood should dry out pretty quickly in that California climate! Check the post I did a couple years ago on making up a cored plug so you can just fill the whole thing with thickened epoxy. I ended up with a soft wood core for a pilot hole that makes it easy to redrill for the brass tube (provided you have a 1" dia. metal cutting bit!

I wouldn't seal the scuppers up for a couple of reasons:
1. If you ever take a big wave over the stern you'll wish you had them! You want to get that water out quickly before another wave hits and if you can get on plane, they'll suck out a lot of water real fast. Also with your light motor, your boat should be easily self bailing at rest.
2. Like you say, they come in real handy when you wash down the deck! If you can wash off fish blood before it dries, it's a whole lot easier to clean up.
3. My scuppers lasted about 25 years after initial replacement, and I didn't do anything then but seal them with Life Caulk. Now that they're all sealed up w/epoxy, they should last forever and shouldn't leak into the hull, even if the brass tubes rot out!

[seafari25]

Looking good Denny!

That's the way to go with the anchor. I'll be looking in to doing that down the road.

...and I agree with not filling in the scuppers. Didn't you read my post on the 25 resto thread Gillie? I've never seen rain like that before and the little bit of water that followed the ladies to the cabin wasn't enough to kick my pump in. Also If you ever dock your boat for extended periods of time without full cover, It's nice to know that you're not relying on a pump.

[McGillicuddy]

Thanks again, guys. I'll start another scupper thread to redirect this one back to Denny's anchor roller.

[rhody98]

Very nice Denny. Nothing worse than dragging anchor in the middle of the night, you wont be doing that!

And the new hawsepipe position is still forward of the bulkhead?

hang on to them scuppers gilly

[Bushwacker]

And the new hawsepipe position is still forward of the bulkhead?

Thanks Rhody - yea, the hawsepipe is about 6-8" fwd of bulkhead; would have liked to have had it a couple of inches further forward but didn't have much clearance between all the hardware in that direction. May need some sort of a net covering the bulkhead opening to keep all the rope in locker in rough seas! Probably should have mounted the bracket a little further forward, but didn't have much vertical clearance underneath for the bolts as it is. Still better than original location; it was too far forward so when hauling the anchor, all the line would pile up on the flared part of bow, since hawsepipe was at least a foot fwd of center of rope locker. Now, with all that chain, I can actually haul the anchor in faster, since I don't have to "push on a rope" to get last of anchor rode down into the rope locker!

[fdheld34]

Denny,
Looks great..that IS a beefy roller setup!!!! sure did get rid of the clutter... I need to get a different anchor...my flukes dont pivot enough compared to your anchor...you have quite a bit of clearance between flukes and underside of bow. I should have kept my bow cleats too
Again great job! Hope to meet up soon
-FRED