Windlass Installation

[heritage]

I just purchased a Quick 1000 watt verticle windlass with a 5/16" chain/rope capstan and will be installing it on my Oday 37 CC. The boat has never had a windlass.

I found this http://forums.oday.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?p=717215&highlight=windlass link that gave me ideas on how to and where to put the windlass, but still have questions.

Peter Brennan has his rode falling through the space behind the wooden panel at the foot of the v-berth, and then dropping into the space under the v-berth. The rode contacts the bow of the hull about 20" below the windlass, which should be enough free fall for the weight of the chain to keep the rode moving. Peter stated that he initially had trouble getting the rope portion of the rode to fall properly, so he settled on a 150' of chain to avoid the problem. Has anyone else had this problem and has anyone tried using 8-plait rope instead of 3-strand nylon? Or has anyone chosen to install the windlass more to the aft inorder to get a more verticle free fall area for the rode?

Sorry to be so winded, but I only have one more question. Where did you route the cable to get from the batteries to the v-berth?

Any comments, successes, or failures would be appreciated.

Thanks, Pat

 

[RAD]

I also copied Peter's idea and my 32 is the little sister to the 37 and the bow and anchor locker are the same and I have only 40 feet of chain to keep the weight in the bow down but where I sail most of the time 40 ft is just enough in the shallow Great South Bay but I have a problem getting the three strand rode to fall through the 4" opening by itself and if you move it back you'll be into the vee berth cause the anchor locker in mine is part of the vee berth ceiling.......I gotta look around and see if I have some pic's

 

[heritage]

These pics show my windlass install almost complete. I opted not to have the rode storage outside of the confines of the original anchor box. This keeps salt water, mud, etc. out of the bildge. The downside is that the rode will tend to bunch up in that the free fall area is short. I find that is easy to kick the rode forward as needed. Actually, 25' of 5/16" chain will nest under the windlass without bunching up. The chain to rope splice does occasionally hang up on retrieval, but it is easy to grab the rope and help it in.

The windlass is operated with a handheld up/down controller that is plugged in at the recepticle on the port side of the windlass. You can see the wire in the picture of the V-berth.

The windlass motor will be covered by a wooden box that swings open for maintenance access.

I used 2 awg tined cable from the house batteries, then under the frig., under the nav desk on starboard side, along the hull an the bottom of the setee lockers, then up through the bottom of the V-berth hanging closet and out the top. From there, it is hung under the lip of the ceiling liner and ziptied to keep it there.

Pat

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[redhead78]

Should that thing have like a 24"x24" x 3/4 " plywood epoxied in under for torque load??? How thick is your deck there? Red

 

[heritage]

Good question, Red. The windlass is mounted over where a solar vent was. Removal of the vent left a 4" hole in the deck. The deck is balsa cored so I removed the coring to about one inch of the edge of the hole, even more between the hole and anchor locker. The removed balsa area was filled with fiber filled epoxy. The hole was filled with many layers of glass cloth and mat laid in with epoxy. The overall thickness of the deck is about 1". Two of the windlass hold down bolts went through the fiber filled epoxy area and the other two through the glassed in solar hole.

The main reason that I used Starboard as a base for the windlass was to cover the repair area of the solar vent hole. Pat