On the C44 plug, Lee and I installed a new Lewmar windlass on the bowsprit. The prior windlass had been hydraulic because the owner, who finished what had been my dad's unfinished boat, was a hydraulics engineer. It weighed about 300 lbs. I lowered it off the boat with the stays'l boom. This particular boat's bowsprit, engineered by the hydraulics engineer, is made of galvanized steel angle iron and shelled with mahogany. I scraped out plenty of white corrosion from where the bronze windlass had been bolted to it and epoxied and painted as much as I could through the back panel, which Lee cut for as little access as we could get-- for no access was provided-for originally. (What kind of arrogance is needed for one to delude himself into thinking that what is good in his own theory might never need inspection, maintenance and replacement in practice?) Then the former owner had led a chain rode THROUGH the bowsprit to an internal bronze roller inside the very end of the 'sprit-- about the least sensible thing one could have done, for now the slowly-corroding galvanized cage is a girder in shear load holding the boat to her mooring. On factory-built C44s, the bowsprit is a robust spruce and 'glass structure that could probably hold up half the boat on its own. It does not fail unless you fail to take care of it. 8 Jun 2012