Ken,
An electric windlass is a great investment in your anchoring pleasure - without a doubt! Now, you won't hesitate to drop, raise, drop, raise and drop again until it's right. You will sleep more soundly knowing that you're securely anchored and if you drag, it won't be a drag to pick up the hook and move the boat. Electric is the way to go.
In ref to your set up, I think you'll find the common mod that we have done to the boats - a downspout thru the chain/anchor well to the space below. Look at the pics on the board to give you ideas. It's really not hard to do - should take about 2-4hrs including bedding the windlass.
The wiring will only take another 1-1.5 hrs - again not too difficult.
I will speak from my set up - I looked at the 2 options - battery forward etc vs long 1.0 cables to the engine bat.
I went with the long cables properly sized to the engine battery.
In my non-engineering common sense - it only made sense to not put a battery up front - hell everybody has been taking ingots out of the forepeak to lighten up the bow - so why add a battery!?!
No, I went with the "run directly to the engine battery and wired it to an 80amp fuze and safety key by the bat box and straight to the bats. Intention is that the engine will always be running when anchoring for safety - always plenty of power if needed. That said, I anchor under sail often, I have sailed off of anchor when the occasion lent itself. There's been plenty of juice in the 600CC amp engine battery to do that with the engine off evey now and then for the peace and quiet of an anchorage. Either way, I rather have the engine on to get myself out of a jam as needed - so the power is there.
The only drawback is that I didn't zip tie the damn cable the entire length and guess where it droops down from the lining...dummy me. Next spring...
One last thought - make sure to buy the remote switch and wire it to the cockpit - you never know when you'll be doing an emergency anchoring alone.
I had not wired one and I paid for it in some very serious close calls. I've been a single-hander for quite some time. In the bay of St Tropez during a 50kt Mistral, poor holding, couldn't get an anchor to stick in the grassy, rocky bottom. I would raise the anchor off the bottom and the boat would careen downwind, until I ran back to the cockpit and motored back up into the wind - all in a full anchorage...very precarious position - so I left St Tropez anchorage and motored out at 7pm to find refuge elsewhere. I motored across the bay to protected waters for the night - but away from everything - so much for St Tropez that night.
The electric windlass was priceless at that moment and remote would have been all the better!
In that situation - can you imagine cranking an anchor manually? No way - just pull the chain up by hand would have been faster out of sheer adrenaline!
Nope - this sailor's sold on electric windlasses.
Good move and choice of gear. It will do you right.
Smooth sailing and safe secure anchorages!
Tony