Day 158, 7/13/24 Windlass mount build Part 2, chain locker rebuild part1, switching to spare fuel tank

 

 Windlass 

Windlass mount part 2

 Bring mount back to garage, cut excessive material and sanded to start buildup internal support.

 Ready to put interface plate

 

I have cut  5mm G10 material "interface plate" on my CNC with exact windlass mounting dimensions. Main reason to save time and grantee flat surface under the windlass bottom and lift it a little up to give way to do maintain it without removing it from the deck.

Plate is laminate on thickened epoxy to the top and filled around with epoxy based filler.

Internal side fillets was done and 4 more layers of 1708 glassfiber mat from the bottom side to mounting plates. brown color is from old epoxy hardener which was stored in the metal can. Main leftovers cut with knife as soon as resin kicked enough to keep shape, but soft to cut.

 
Because part is built from inside to out (without mold) i had to put fairing compound and then sand it to flat in cosmetic sides. Part just covered. I Using epoxy  based Totalboat Fairing Compound.

 

 Then sanding again [no picture]

and 2 layers of primer and one layer of Interlux Perfection.

And.... we have almost perfect part, almost ready to install.

Windlass dry fit on finished mount. Looks good.

Finished mount dry fit on the boat.

 

For now, I plan to male it removable. It will be fixed to locker walls  with 6  5/16 bolts. Main reason - keep access to under deck nuts holding bow chainplate and pulpit. You may see small plate on the front surface of the locker. If i make windlass mount permanently fixed it will be very hard to use this access.

Chain locker

Increasing capacity of the chain locker.

 I am planning yo have 80' of chain + 100-200ft of nylon line. Original locker in very shallow and has no space to get all chain under the windlass without manual tossing it around. And I am lazy guy. I better will spend a week to make deep box and then just make windlass to toss chain there. 

Two options. 

1) Cut hole in the existing chain locker and build watertight bulkhead and use whole volume as chain locker.

Pros: 

•     Big - really big locker where i can put a lot of chain ;) 
•     Keeping chain low in the hull.
•     I get "crash" compartment which will be very useful in case of collision and hull penetration in bow area.

Cons:

• No way to self drain. I will need to add additional pump or drain "chain" water to main bilge and use main bilge pump for it.
• Compartment appears really big, a would estimate 30-50 gallons. I am not sure I want to have so big volume which eventually may be filled in seconds with wave crashing on the bow ( a specially if chain locker lid get opened for some reason.
• To use the area for chain i would like to reinforce hull sides to provide better impact holding. It means I will need to lay glass hanging almost up side down in confined space. It have to be at least 6-8 mm additional glass, so  a lot of glassing.
• Other issue - if I reinforce the area  I will make hard spot on the hull and likely may make additional problems.
  

2) Cut hole and build 6-8 gallons bucket big enough to receive whole chain

Pros:

• Could be made de-touchable to be able to bet better access to bow section
• Smaller volume will not be able to take a lot of water even if filled full with water
• Much more comfortable to build
• Much better internal surface if build on mold
• Hard to measure and build box good fit to place
• Do not compromise hull. 
• We may leave v-berth bow door on place 

Cons:

• Smaller, can may take less chain.
• Higher gravity center point.
• Still need to be innovative to do drain or close original hole and make new drain thru hull.

Decision 

1) Go with second approach, build hanged out of deck self draining chain box.

2) try to do it de-touchable (at least easy to cut out if needed).

3) Go with glassing existing bulkhead to glass existing wood bulkhead to make it watertight up to water level. (door stay on place). Mostly to provide some protection in case of  bow collision/penetration. 

Original chain locker cut the bottom part.

 Build box template

Built an connection template

and removed it

Cut out piece of chain locker bottom.

Check depth of the new chain locker.

Building template to cut original chain locker lid

Fuel Tank

B pictures, but about an hour lost in attempts to bleed fuel line from new tank to filter.

Yes, it was crazy, me and my son publed manual pump for a while, but no success to rid of air after thousand pushes. Then  we found i broke piece of old pipe between T connector joining injectors return and tank line to lift pump.

So far engine restarted and worked about half an hour with no issues.