This weekend(Friday/Saturday) the First Mate and I anchored out overnight. It was our first experience with the new all-chain rode, manual windlass, hawse pipe to the keel, and modified bow roller. Some of you will recall the bow roller mod a few of us have done on the H37C. Basically adding large stainless plate to each side of the existing roller with a much larger roller further foward(search in Photo Forum). NE winds over 15 knots got us over to Kellys Island on Lake Erie, mostly at 6+ knots on a poor point of sail. The SW side of Kellys was like a pond compared to the four footers on the way over. We dropped anchor in about fifteen feet of water and let out about 70 foot of chain, way too much scope for the calm conditions. We did not back fast enough so ended up with a hundred pounds of chain all in one place. Funny thing about chain, it always hangs straight down. Now where is that anchor?! Yep, neglected to attach a marker. I think I was on deck every fifteen minutes until about 03:00. Then I was so tired I actually slept until 04:00, fully dressed on a settee. After coffee and bagels it was time to recover all that weight. That is when I discovered the flaws in my bow roller and hawse pipe. Despite glassing what I thought was a suitable ramp the chain will still not fall to the bottom of the keel. It tends to pile up under the hawse pipe and has to be helped. This necessitates someone in the v-berth giving it a hand down in the locker. So much for single-handling with chain rode. I did not anticipate the bow roller problem. The chain would ride to the left on the roller when it should be on the right. So it was crossways coming over the roller and would jam on the inside plate(outside plate of original roller). I could overpower it with the manual windlass but it made an easy retrieval very difficult. When the boat would swing so that the chain was straight it came up very easily. So more work is required in the design. Both of the roller and of the ramp to the keel. All in all a great weekend!
) Keep us posted on the mods to the mods. ph.