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Anchor Locker

Keith Hughes

New Member
Hi everyone,
I am wondering if anyone can post some pics of the Anchor Locker and forestay attachment. My vessel doesnt have a locker and I would like to get some ideas on how to design one without interfering with the forestay.
 
Keith , If you scout around the media photos eventually you will find anchor lockers and some windless mounting options also . What kind of boat do you have ?
 
I have a 1969 Morgan 38. I have already searched the media photos but want something specific to the Morgan class. The vessel was fitted with another top deck by the previous owner and much of the standing rigging is missing. I am pretty handy ( I build ships for a living ) and could design something of my own ( I also use AutoCAD) but I would like it to have some original resemblance....lol ...if possible. Photos of other Morgans fore deck would help I think.
 
Hi Keith - here's a short video of our anchor locker after I installed a new Maxwell windlass. It's pretty rough looking because I still need to sand & paint the locker and clean things up. It was kind of an emergency repair.

It was a joke video because some other friends were with us the previous week and our old manual windlass kept failing. Dumping the anchor and 250 ft of chain after it had all had just been cranked in. Our friend in the video is saying she doesn't get what the big problem is ... it's pretty easy (with the new windlass).

 
Keith, most of the pictures on this site are of 382/383/384 Brewer designed Morgans. Your boat is referred to a "Charlie Morgan" designed in the 60's so be aware its a different boat from what you see here. There may be some pictures in the archives. But just a heads up on the difference.
 
Hi Keith, here is a picture of the foredeck of my 1970 Charlie Morgan 38, I don't believe any had lockers, I think that started with the 382.
 

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Keith, most of the pictures on this site are of 382/383/384 Brewer designed Morgans. Your boat is referred to a "Charlie Morgan" designed in the 60's so be aware its a different boat from what you see here. There may be some pictures in the archives. But just a heads up on the difference.
Thanks Dave
 
Hi Mark, what Maxwell model is this and what are the typical deeps you anchor in? With the windlass in the anchor locker are you concerned that in heavy seas it filling with water and can that effect the windlass?
 
If your worried about anchor locker fill up , install a drain each side , maybe a check valve also . Yes I have seen my 384 take blue water over the noise , but its so quick 90 % drains down the deck to the scuppers.
 
Larry - our new windlass is an Maxwell HRC 8. We love it. We've got some deep water here in the Pacific Northwest. So we have 260 ft of chain and we frequently use all of it.

You're right - last summer we were sailing offshore going north and getting hammered by waves, many times we stuffed the bow enough that I could see our nav lights under blue water. We discovered afterward that lots of water got in through the anchor locker and spilled into various places including the bilge. For that reason, I'm sealing up the anchor locker better with gasket material and I've got a chunk of rubber plug to wedge into the hole where the chain exits the anchor locker hatch. I think it will keep the locker quite a bit dryer.

We already have drain holes on the inside of the anchor locker but they are quite small (like maybe 1/4") and aren't meant to move large volumes of water.
 
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And make sure the forward most bulkhead is tabbed to the deck and well sealed. I learned the hard way when I beat into a gale for 24 hours. The forecastle was soaking, as water filled the upper anchor locker and then came over the top of the bulkhead into the cabin. The existing drains are too small to drain the locker quickly and that bulkhead needs to be attached to the deck, in any case. I have since changed the anchor locker lid so it fits over the locker with a shoe box joint, which also reduces how much water gets into the locker. Coming home from Hawaii, however, I discovered another way for water to get into the boat—although not into the living areas. The bow was immersed in water every few minutes for 3 days, and water poured down the windlass hause hole, down into the lower locker where the chain is stored. Just like Mark notes. That leads to the bilge. Now, if I am going offshore for a long trip or where conditions may get ugly, I will fill that hole with some sort of foam around the chain. Haven’t had to do it yet, but I know it should be done.
 
Seal the chain locker Fiberglass it ! Stop it from draining under your deck on the way to the bilge ! You dont want that water and sand staying Damp under your deck ! Seal the factory drain hole make port and starboard drain holes . In my view its a design flaw. !
Plug the hole install a false bottom glass in and lean the false bottom to one side a little and drill a hole to drain at the lowest point . Mine is 12-15 inches above the water line. does not hurt to wash the locker out with a hose and let the hatch open during a sunny day !
 
Hi Mark, Thanks for sharing your windlass model. I have a 384 with the small drain holes as well and have experienced the locker filling up with water. I am adding a windlass and have been looking at the Maxwell HRC8. Sounds like you are very happy with it. What weight anchor are you using? Also if you anchor in very deep water you must be lifting a lot of weight?
 
Larry, we have a Bruce 20kg (44 lbs) as our main anchor and it came with Zia. At the risk of igniting a religious war, if I was buying a new anchor I think I would probably get a Mantus. We have 5/16" BBB chain that I once calculated as weighing 270 lbs. So it's probably around 320 lbs. total ... which is quite significant if you don't have a windlass that is working ;).

I feel pretty good about our anchor locker now. Sealing it with gaskets and a chunk of foam rubber to prevent water intrusion where the chain exits the hatch. In the next few weeks I'm going to also do what Terry described: I'm going to fill in and fiberglass (tab) the 'deck to anchor locker walls' connection. I think that's only important if you are out in serious waves, but we tend to do that.
 
My locker was permanently sealed by PO. One problem solved.
You can see my forstay, anchor and locker arrangement on my favorite pictures. Yurek's Misia.
I still have extra bow roller for sale. See me old messages.
Yurek.
 
Larry - fyi here is a recent photo of our anchor locker with the Maxwell HRC8 windlass. As Dave astutely pointed out above, we have a 384 and Yurek has a Charlie Morgan model. We love this windlass setup and it's light years ahead of our old manual windlass which was missing parts and failed frequently. In the next couple of weeks I think I'll make a separate thread about our windlass replacement. With before/after photos, wiring diagram, etc.

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Mark - pretty clean in that locker Mark. No sea weed, mud, blood, beer cans. What no Spyders? Do you use that thing?
 
Dave - I just love that bright white Bilgekote. You just paint right over the seaweed, mud, blood & beer cans and they disappear! My wife is irrationally terrified of spiders so we let them know they are not welcome aboard Zia. ;)

Here's a "before" picture ... probably more like what you had in mind. It was quite dramatic when it would spontaneously fail and dump all 250 ft of chain and anchor. The water was 500 ft deep so there was nothing to break its fall except the bitter end. Which miraculously held.

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Mark & Dave

A quick spider story. One spring during fit out for the season I found an impressive spider web constructed on the stern rail covering most of the starboard side. There was a rather large spider in the center of the web who I assumed was in charge of the construction. I felt bad about destroying her web. So I avoided her corner as I went about my cleaning chores. I even sat, on my work breaks, and discussed with her the projects I was involved in as the spring progressed. When the day came of Dana's launch, I apologized to my lady friend and washed her and her web away with the water hose. The season started off good until about two weeks in. One morning while standing at the helm, looking at the stern rail I noticed something odd. The whole pushpin seemed to be wobbling. Closer inspection revealed about 200 or more baby spiders crawling across the stern. My lovely lady friend left me a present. A very unwanted present. Out came the water hose and I fed those babies to a school of little fish waiting under the transom. That was the last time I engaged in small talk with female spiders.

Jim
 
On Williwaw we installed a Plath windlass aft of the old anchor locker, ran a slanted hawsepipe thru the old locker so it centered above the chain locker below. The chain locker bulkhead had decayed so it was replaced with a glass-sandwiched piece of coosa board and then the v berth was finished with a teak enclosure over the windlass motor and wiring.

It works quite well, only wish I knew how much 5/16th G4 chain would fin in that locker, we have about 120' in there now and would put a longer one in if I had any idea what the max might be.
 

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Tom, I carry about 240 feet of 5/16 chain in my locker. But it will not self stow. I have to reach down through a small hatch in the top shelf to move it around or ot piles up and jams in the house pipe. I have contemplated changing the top shelf by raising the height of the after 1/3 up to the deck level, but that may not work eitHer. But I don’t want to get rid of the shelf altogether because I stow my rope rode for my extra anchor there. The rode stowage on the 382 is not ideal.
 
Terry, thanks for the info! I rebuilt the chain locker bulkhead a couple years back and gave thought to moving it aft to make more room, but the V-berth bunk is short enough that I did not want to make it any less comfortable, so I left the bulkhead in the original location. I also kept the upper deck-accessible locker for a second rode with a couple hundred feet of 3/4" 3-braid nylon and about 50' of chain.

I put the small access door (maybe 6" X 8") in the new bulkhead about 2/3rds up from bottom (basically as high as I could still reach bottom with my hand). I made the access door watertight with a 1/8" neoprene gasket which tends to take its role seriously and really sticks.

Your mentioning of having to reach-in and shuffle the chain around to get the whole 240' in there resonates with my concern in that I'd spend a lot of time unscrewing and replacing that little access door when only using a part of the rode.

It's had me thinking-up ways to secure the chain I have, then adding the nylon to the rode and letting it out when I need more. My windlass has a good capstan so it's mostly a matter of having a routine that makes it difficult to lose the whole lot while adding the nylon line. If I prefect that maneuver I'll share the technique with the gang.
 
Tom

I have a similar situation to yours. My windlass is aft of the on deck anchor locker, an angled hawse pipe drops the chain into the anchor locker. I carry 225' of 5/16" G4 chain. To get the system to work I built a cofferdam (divider) in the lower anchor locker. Because where we anchor here on the East Coast, we rarely pay out more then 90' of chain to be comfortable, I store the first 90' of chain from the anchor aft of the divider and directly under the hawse pipe. The rest of the 135' of chain goes forward of the divider. So for most (90%) of our situations the windlass pays out and retrieves the 90' without much difficulty. For the times when more then the 90' is needed, the windlass continues to freely payout as much chain as I need. The problem becomes when it becomes time to retrieve. I then have to work from the V-Bunk and bring in the chain and passing it to the compartment forward of the divider. Once I reach the 90' marker, it's back to normal retrieval from the deck. There are times when the chain pile, in the 90' group, needs to be knocked down. To accomplish that there is a capped anchor hawse pipe in the bottom of the on deck locker that allows the pile to be knocked down with a oak stick. I am in the habit of knocking down the pile every 30' of retrieval. I know this all sounds complicated but the actual use is fairly easy. I hope this will make sense to you and that it may help with your situation

Jim
 
Thanks Jim, in the FL panhandle we mostly anchor in shallow water too.

WIlliwaw came with 150' of G4 and no windlass I wasn't keen on hauling up a lot of chain so I hacked 50' off the chain and connected it to some 3/4" nylon that all stayed in the upper deck locker for an interim measure.

The lower chain locker was a rotten mess.

When I put on the windlass I rebuilt the lower chain locker with 3/4" Coosa (Penske) board with two layers of heavy glass mat on the inside and a single layer on the V-berth side. I positioned the Hawes pipe over the center and now wish I even had my original 150' of chain intact. .

I've searched high and low for a full-strength splice link that won't destroy the wildcat on the windlass (no luck) . . . .

Seems my approach may have to be to round up a +240' piece of G4 (the amount Terry can stow) and see how much of it I can shove down that Hawes pipe.

The last couple hurricanes have convinced us where rode is concerned, more is more.
 
Tom, I think a good timber rigging shop could splice a new length of chain on. There are some links discussed in a recent Practical Sailor article that duplicate the chain size, I believe. I think they are as strong as the standard links, but I am not sure.
 
Over time I've rounded-up a couple splicing links - one's more than strong enough but larger than the standard links, the other is standard size with tiny points cast into one side and holes in the other - you're supposed to pound the points down like built-in rivets (I'm unsure how strong that link would be) - I've thought about having it welded-up but that would mess-up the galvanizing.

A rigging shop is a good idea - they'd at least know the strength of that rivet link.

Thanks!
 
Hi Mark:
I have been using your installation and wiring diagram to install my own Maxwell HRC8 FF windlass. Your wiring diagram is much easier to follow than the Maxwell instructions since it shows the wireless remote control as well as the basic windlass, and applied to a Morgan sailboat. Thank you very much for providing that.
My question tonight is about a detail in the wring diagram for the remote control. There is a fourth wire labelled "Ground" and I am not sure how to hook that up. I don't think that you actually show what to do with that wire. Is it just connected to the 12V negative battery side of the power to the winch? The Maxwell instructions do not say either.
Steve
 
Hi Steve - glad that diagram is useful. I hope you saw the note that I used AWG 2 instead of AWG 1 for the long run up to the bow. Either would work, but the AWG 2 is less expensive. I need to change that drawing.

On the Remote wire labelled "Ground", I'm pretty sure I probably attached that to the negative 12V, because I don't think there is anything else that is "ground like" that I could have attached it to in that area of the boat. I'll verify when I'm there tomorrow.

Also a tip: get a couple extra batteries for the key fob. They seem to only last a year or so, but they are pretty inexpensive. Energizer A23.
 
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