The cap plate I fabricated to cover the hole left from my old bit-the-dust Sprint 400 anchor windlass worked out great. To recap, I was reluctant to go cruising with blue duct tape all over the foredeck:

So with a little help from a member of the crew, I got all the tape removed, and replaced it with my temporary cap plate. I think it looks about 1000% better than duct tape!
 

But then, once I got the anchor mounted, without the windlass taking up the slack, I realized that the inboard end of the anchor is going to bang, bang, bang against the foredeck each time I go over a wave. That is not acceptable.

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For those keeping score at home, earlier entries are here and here. With some help from a friend, I got my Simpson-Lawrence (Lewmar) Sprint 400 anchor windlass removed from the foredeck of Two Lucky Fish. It wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared it would be, but it was very helpful having another set of hands along.

If nothing else, somebody could take pictures of me working!

Once the windlass was removed, it was time to clean up the deck. To start with, I removed as much of the old bedding compound as I could using “mechanical” means. The best tool, it turned out, was an improvised tool: a sheet of some scrap plastic I had picked up at TAP Plastics for another project. I’d brought this along to cushion the foredeck while we used  various levers and a small pry-bar to gently lift up the windlass body WITHOUT damaging the surface of the deck. It worked well in that role, and then came in handy again for the clean up, too:

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Remember the Walker Bay Airis inflatable kayak I wrote about last winter? It’s inflatable, but it didn’t feel floppy or unstable at all. I was impressed.
 
The Walker Bay AirDock uses the same internal Air-Web construction matrix, allowing the platform to maintain its flat shape at relatively high pressure. I haven’t seen one in person, but if it’s anything like the Airis, I expect it to be firm and stable.

That definitely appears to be the impression Walker Bay wants to give:

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In case you don’t remember, I took my Simpson-Lawrence (Lewmar) Sprint 400 anchor windlass apart last week, in hopes of improving its sluggish performance.

First, here’s a picture of me reassembling it:

Oh, sorry…wrong photo. See, I felt a little like Scotty in the Jefferies Tube every time I slid up into the forepeak on my back. Here I am:

So I put it all back together, and…it didn’t work any better. Actually, I think it was worse. But now I’m not sure there was really anything wrong with the electric motor (or the current flow through it) to begin with.

See, part of the compound gear assembly is broken, and I didn’t realize it until now. That just MIGHT have something to do with the sluggish, gutless performance I’m seeing. Maybe the motor’s working fine, but it’s encountering SEVERE resistance because of one or more failures within the gear case. Hmmmm…

So here’s the lower part of the gear case, showing one end of the part I know is broken. The gear in the upper right is reverse-threaded onto a shaft. In the picture on the right I’ve removed the gear. The threaded shaft is broken. It’s difficult to tell with grease all over the place, I realize.

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Is “overhaul” quite the right term? I’m not sure. Anyway, the anchor windlass was not working properly, so I took it apart, cleaned it up, and put it back together again.

I was playing with it because I wanted to see how well or poorly my new Rocna 6-kg anchor would self-deploy off my current bow-roller. Here is the anchor and windlass on Two Lucky Fish’s foredeck, complete with my shiny new do-it-yourself custom-fabricated bail:

The windlass appears to be a Simpson-Lawrence (now Lewmar) Sprint 400, and it was not actuating reliably in either direction, and even when it would run, it was gutless, unable to lift much of anything at all.

My theory was that it was not getting all the current through it, so I decided to open it up and take a look. Yuck!

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I’ve been listening to a lot of AC/DC recently. But that’s not important right now. Besides, they’re Australian, and the Rocna anchor was designed in New Zealand. I should probably have selected a Flight of the Conchords musical reference, since they’re from New Zealand.

Anyhoo! I’ve decided to get a Rocna anchor and try it out aboard Two Lucky Fish. The Rocna is one of the new generation of Funny Looking Anchors we’ve discussed here previously.

I’ve got 6-kg model on its way from Suncoast Marine in Vancouver, the North American manufacturer. This should be plenty big enough for my C-Dory 22, especially considering that I don’t usually anchor out when it’s really rough, and I cruise in areas where some sort of shelter is nearly always close at hand. I don’t need a hurricane anchor.

I’ll report on it periodically as I gain experience with it. I’m not going to attempt to conduct genuine “scientific” testing, but I might take it out to the beach with my current Bruce-clone “Claw” anchor and a similar-sized Delta I can borrow from my sister, and play around with them all in the sand.

All I know now is that my Claw anchor seems to stay in place about as well as a pile of loose chain would. Yeah, I know…I’m probably not setting it right. That’s almost certainly true. I don’t claim to be any sort of anchoring expert.

But that’s sort of the point.

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You’ve seen those hollowed out soda-pop cans where you can unscrew the top and hide your diamonds and jewels "in plain sight", right? Well, the RM Line Locker embodies the same principle.

I’m not sure they intend this to be an especially clandestine form of deck storage, and I don’t think I would keep my binoculars or handheld VHF in one of these.

Still, the foredeck is one area that, on many boats, lacks good storage lockers. If you’ve already got a fender rack on either side, it might make sense to replace one of those fenders with some line and other mooring or anchoring gear. How often do you need all four fenders up there, anyway? Not as often as you need your dock lines!

Made from UV-stabilized polyethylene, the RM Line Locker has a removable cap assembly designed to allow air exchange for ventilation while keeping rain and spray out, but only while the unit remains upright, as it would in a fender rack.

   Available in two sizes—8" x 20" and 10" x 26"—and three colors: blue, white, or black. And in case you were wondering, please note that the RM Line Locker is "not to be used as a fender."

Remember my too-clever downrigger mount for the Magma grill on my C-Dory? I’m pretty pleased with the solution I’ve got, but I can’t help but wonder if I might have done it all differently, had I known about Burnewiin’s robust and attractive line of universal gunnel mounts.I got to look at the Burnewiin hardware on a couple of boats today, an Ocean Sport at Islands Marine Center’s display (West 41), and an Everglades sport fisher (East 1020). I tell you, these are some of the nicest fishing rod holders you’ve ever seen! Set phasers on stun…
But really, rod holders are only one of the components you can plug into these deck sockets. They’ve got fender cleats, sheaths for fishing knives, and sockets for battens you might use to support a cockpit cover.

Plus, if you contact them directly, you can buy the raw socket hardware all by itself and…

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I’ve got a Garelick model 55190 boathook. It extends from four feet to a bit over seven. It fits in the little cubby/shelf in the cockpit of my C-Dory 22. It’s a fine little boat hook.

Thing is, I did something kinda dumb with it a few weeks ago. We had the boat in Lake Washington…freshwater. Normally, it’s in saltwater all the time. So I figured I would take that opportunity to rinse off all the cockpit gear. Everything gets awfully salty, and with the season winding down, it makes sense to rinse everything off.

I noticed that the molded rubber hand grip on the end of the pole has a little hole in the middle. Hey, I can rinse out the INSIDE of the boathook too! Great idea!

So I used the pole like a big syringe, sucking up lake water into the interior of the tubing. Then I swished the water all around, pointed the hand grip end into the water, and collapsed the pole to expel all the rinse water back into the lake.

Which is fine, except that the molded rubber hand grip shot off the end of the pole like a rocket, into the lake, and sunk to the bottom. Never to be seen again. (more…)

Last time, it was a bilge pump/water canon. This time, it’s magnetic! The Line-Shark Boat Hook promises to make it easier to pick up and release mooring lines. Magnetic mooring lines, that is…let me explain: (more…)