Bow Roller and Anchor
Here's one for Monday morning; it was a few years ago, but might be of interest to a few C-22 owners.
Breezy came with 2 anchors, both unbranded Danforth-styles, one of approximately 7 lbs and the other of 9. And she had about 4 feet of chain and 75 feet of nylon rode. None of those seemed up to our intended cruising grounds - i.e., the South Puget Sound, where the bottom varies and the tidal range is often 15-20 feet.
Thoughts and Goals:
1) If I'm going to anchor out, I want to sleep soundly. So I wanted a larger anchor and one known to set reliably.
2) I felt like having a solid anchor ready to set quickly is an important safety feature; I didn't want to have to lug a bucket up from the coffin and attach it if we ever need to anchor in a hurry.
3) The existing bow roller was too small to hold even a small fluke anchor without dinging up the bow, and definitely couldn't handle a larger model.
4) We needed a lot more rode to handle 15+ foot tidal swings.
Anchor: I looked at Rocna, Mantus, and Manson models (all with roll bars), and settled on a 15-lb Manson Supreme - $185 from West Marine. I honestly don't recall everything that motivated that choice. All three have huge advocates.
@Maine Sail had good things to say about all of them. In the end, I think a West Marine sale (with free shipping) was a part of my final decision.
Roller: I selected a Lewmar 66840008 roller, $136 (
https://shop.sailboatowners.com/prod.php?12147). It normally mounts with 3x 3/8" bolts, but I needed to mount the stem fitting inside it, so I had 4x 5/16" holes drilled (off center, to shift the headstay a bit away from the shank of the anchor). So the 4x 5/16" bolts replace 1 of the spec'd 3/8" (as always, backed up with G10 inside). At the time, I didn't have a drill press, so I had a shop do this alteration for me. Even though I have a drill press now, I still might do the same. The slowest speeds on most consumer drill presses is marginal for 5/16" in SS. And it would require expensive bits; so unless you have plans for other projects that justify tooling up for big holes in stainless, this might be a good thing to outsource ($60).
The roller fits the anchor perfectly; the only problem is that the roller is wider than the space between the bow pulpit's front supports. I raised it up just a bit on a 'bowsprit' made of King Starboard - with cutouts to fit the Starboard around the pulpit mounts. See the close-up picture, and try to ignore all the mess of butyl tape I haven't cleaned up.
The Starboard isn't structural, just a lift to get the roller up over the pulpit mounts - the stainless holds all the load. If I were starting over, I'd probably use some G10 or structural FRP instead - I've since read
@Maine Sail's admonition that Starboard is notoriously difficult to seal, as nothing (including butyl tape) sticks to it. It appears that mine is sealed OK, so I'm not going to remove it until I have to, but if I ever do, I'll probably replace the Starboard.
Chain: Traditional wisdom seems to be that a small crusing boat should carry a short length of chain, followed by traditional nylon rode. Different sources recommended either 2/3 or 1 boat length of chain (or around 15-22 feet for us). In my normal paranoid fashion, I considered the recommendations for 2/3 - 1 length, and comprimised - on 1.5
.
30 feet of 1/4" G4 chain: $96. G4 is stronger than G3/BBB/Proof chain in the same size, so I went with a longer length of 1/4" instead of a shorter length of 5/16". The weight is comparable, and we have a longer leader of chain on the seafloor, and thus (hopefully) a little better resistance to abrasion.
Rode: I didn't want to worry about an unknown manufacturer, so I went with New England Ropes (I also buy and trust lines from Samson, FSE Robline, etc., but I didn't trust a random eBay line). 250' of 1/2" 3-strand nylon = $177 - at the time $.71/foot seemed like a good deal. If I were starting over, I think I might be able to beat the price. And I'd go for 7/16" - 3/8" seems a little small to me (just over half the strength of 1/2"), but 7/16" is nicely between and should fit in the chain locker a little more easily. If I could find it, I might go for 7/16" plaited rope (like NER's Mega Braid or Mega Plait, although I don't think they make those in 7/16"). They're really intended for use in a windlass, but I think they might also slot more smoothly into the locker with less twisting and kinking. But the 1/2" is working for now, so I'll stick with what I have (I believe
@thinwater had some useful comments here recently on his blog, but I can't find it now).
Notes:
As I noted in when discussing the bow rebuild, I went up from 6" to 8" bow cleats. They're rock solid, mounted through a half inch of G10. But there's not a clean fairlead for the anchor rode through the bow roller to the cleats alongside it. So I mounted a third cleat, directly behind the roller. The rode leads nicely through the roller to that cleat, and when the anchor is on the roller, I can wrap the chain tightly around it as a chain lock. It's a bit smaller than the bow cleats (to fit the available space), but it's easy to back up the connection to one of the main bow cleats as well.
When traveling, the cleated chain keeps the anchor in place, but I usually also support it with a couple bungee cords, to keep it from bouncing and rattling while trailering or sailing. So far so good (the bungees degrade in UV and have to be replaced every year or two, but they're pretty cheap).
I remounted the hawsepipe (if you look closely at the rear of the roller, you can see part of the original location, filled with fiberglass and with some really messy gelcoat over it. Someday I'll learn to do gelcoat right and clean that up.
I've read horror stories about using the bow space on an old-style C-22 as chain locker. It's worked OK for us thus far, but I'll probably someday glass it in, seal it with a waterproof hatch, and add a drain (making it a bit closer to the anchor locker on a new-design). That will also add a few cubic inches of space for our rode, and make it easier to get back into the locker. Maybe you'll see that project described someday, but don't hold your breath.
In the meantime, I have no complaints about the setup. The Manson sets smoothly; not that I have much experience for comparison, but I'm happy with it. The roller helps squeeze water out of the rode as it comes up, so we don't get quite so much water on deck or in the locker (for the moment, since our locker doesn't have a drain, I usually bungee the wet rode on deck to dry for awhile before stuffing it back in the chain locker).
With 30 feet of chain and 250 feet of nylon, we have about 275 feet of rode overall (after splices). That should be adequate for 8:1 scope in about 10-11 feet of water at low tide (+3 feet of freeboard to the roller) even with a 20-foot tidal swing (which would put us at ~33 feet including freeboard). And if it chafes a bit near the end, I can afford to resplice and lose a few feet without replacing the entire rode.
I learned that you always want to ensure that the bitter end of your anchor rode is securely attached to the boat. Thankfully, I didn't have to learn this lesson from my own experience - proving that I do (on rare occasions) learn from others' mistakes. But (you do remember that I'm paranoid, right?), I also wanted to handle a situation where we might need to disconnect quickly - e.g. from a fouled anchor. So I secured the rode with a short piece of sacrificial 3/16" line - in a pinch, I could cut that quickly, whereas the 1/2" line might take longer, even with a sharp knife. The 1/2" is secured to the sacrificial line with a large stainless carabiner - if we ever had to drop the anchor, we could quickly clip it to a fender as a float and cut the sacrificial line. At least, that's the theory - I hope never to test it.
Cost: ~$675
Anchor: $185
Chain: $96
Rode: $177
Roller: $136
Drilling: $60
Hardware: ~$25
