A lot of us don't have boats with a cleverly mounted windlass (Glen who?). To make it worse, there is often no real good place to put it and a bow roller. Either the foredeck is too small or the edges roll off. You Florida folks don't anchor a lot, but some of us do. I dive more than I fish and there is usually no one on the boat while we're in the water. So, it is kind of important that I have good, stout ground tackle and lots of it.
My current project is the Venture 34. It has a bit of room on the foredeck which was originally taken up by an 8" Accon pop up cleat, a flip over bow light and a pair of lift up chocks. But the edges roll off to the bow rail and there was no place to put the anchor roller.
The first photo shows all the existing hardware removed. Now's a good time to make sure there is nothing in the way underneath the deck Drilling through wiring is a hassle.
Next, you lay out the template for the windlass and make sure you have room.
Now, get a chunk of cardboard and make a template as shown in the next shot. Handsome, huh? But it gave me the dimensions and let me hold the roller in place. The next step is the tough one. Find a programmer who has a CNC milling machine (that's me) and buy a chunk of 3/4 x 12 aluminum plate. Design it on the computer so it looks less like an air guitar and more of a mounting plate. Program it and cut it out.
The comes the fun part. back out to the boat and lay it in place. If it fits, start drilling holes. Taking a 4 inch hole saw to your deck makes for some cringing, but it has to be done. After the holes are drilled, do a trial assembly.
The next part of the operation is going to be drilling a few additional mounting holes in the plate. I'll make a doubler plate to got on the backside of the deck and I'll drill the holes for the roller and the chain stop. If you look closely, you'll see that the plate did not quite cover the chock holes, but I'm going to mount Low profile LED nav lights to cover the holes. Next the plate will get anodized and stuck down with 4200.
If you can't find a machinist and a machine, let me know. I'll need a good template and it won't be inexpensive, but it is a nice piece of hardware. FWIW, the Jupiter was much harder because the deck curved side to side. The back of the plate has to be contoured to match. That was tough.
This will give you an idea of what it will look for. Yeah, it is a big windlass and it has a drum as well. The drum is really handy for bringing up anchors someone else left behind.....
Windlass mounting solved
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