The Shearwater III came equipped with a small Standard Horizon 500 winch that died in late 2007 after years of service. It still worked electrically, but the gipsy was worn and the internal gears were starting to slip. Prior to its demise, the winch was sufficient to lift the anchor the all chain rode we would installed, but neither the windless nor the deck it was bolted to was sufficient to take the force of waves, a good blow, or anything that might cause the boat to move from her anchored location.
We installed a nearly bolt identical Lewmar Pro Sport 550
windlass with a gypsy suitable for 14" G4 (high test) chain and 1/2" line.
The windless is a 2-wire unit requiring no control box
and came with a circuit
breaker and switch that were identical to those use by the unit we removed.
We held them as spares. The unit has a rated pulling power of 500 pounds.
I suspect this is with wire shorter and heaver than the 30 some feet of 8 gauge
wire led back to the cockpit. The windless can be operated from the wheel.
The Lewmar 550 is rated at boats from 20' to 30', slightly smaller than the Gemini. This has not been a problem since we use the bridle overnight and a small chain hook for lunch anchoring. In the rare event we must break the anchor loose of the bottom, we motor up until the rode is vertical, attach the chain hook and use the engine power to get the few extra feet we need to release the anchor.
I'm satisfied with the installation and operation - and it looks nicer then the old one.
The windless installed easily on the deck, just to the left of center above the anchor locker. There was ample stacking space for 80' of 1/4" ht chain. We will increase the chain length to 150' next time it must be replaced. The photos below show various views of the installation.
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Before moving from the dock when we bought her, we chose to inspect the rope to chain attachment. What we found was typical of a chain to rope splice that had been sitting in the anchor locker for many years. At least we had no trouble identifying the weak link! The dampness from the chain and the exclusion of air at the chain/rope splice causes more rapid failure of the link. A "long splice" may reduce this problem somewhat.
The bridle was installed by making two ½" holes well above the waterline that opened into accessible places inside where you I could install large backing plates. The "U" bolts go through the hull, through a layer of glass, a layer of webbing and finally, a piece of ½ inch plywood. The glass, webbing and plywood were all saturated in glass and applied together to ensure they bonded one to another. Finally, the "U" bolt has large washers inside the plywood.
I know there is debate about backing plates in the Gemini community and this isn't about that - but to gain additional strength, the location of the "U" bolt was selected to be near an existing cross bulkhead that was part of the boat.
I choose 5/8" line (without a lot of analysis) to trade between the stretch of small line and the strength of big line. ½" or even ⅜" should be big enough if the bridle is used only for anchoring. I plan to use it for long term mooring and wanted the extra size because internal marine growth at a mooring leads to chafe and early line failure.
I choose stainless rather than nylon thimbles because I felt the stainless to stainless wear point (where the "U" bolt hits the thimble) would last longer than a nylon thimble. I've seen a few nylon thimbles wear out when left in use over a long time.
The line is looped through the thimble in the normal way after the thimble was slightly separated and rejoined over the "U" bolt. There is no way to remove the bridle from the boat except by cutting the bridle or unbolting the "U" bolt.
Each leg of the bridle is about 12' each - about the distance between the two hull attachment points. This has several advantages. As the bridle grows longer, it is more effective against pure pull - if the bridle were longer it would be stronger - but as it grows shorter there is a larger force keeping the boat pointed toward the anchor. My co-captain and I worked on the analysis for a while and just cut the line where it looked right. She did the "long splices" with three full tucks and each successive tuck having some strands cut so the splice tapers neatly.
I have looked at the new Geminis with their down haul attachment points for the removable head sail option. I think they are in the right place for a bridle attachment but I don't know if they are strong enough. Before I tied anything to those points, I would suggest you discuss it with PCI.
My choice of attachment location involved four factors:
1. I had to be able to reach the back to epoxy in the strengthening glass and install the backing plates. The port side in in the sail locker and the starboard side is in the forward cabin about where the forward dummy bulkhead is located.
2. I wanted the "U" bolts as close to the water as possible to improve the ride - but above the normal waterline so if I had not bedded them well enough the leak rate would be minimized.
3. I wanted crossing bulkheads to distribute the load.
4. I intend to double use the "U" bolts to support a removable head sail similar to those that are optional on the newer Geminis.
I angled the "U" bolt so it would draw fair on the bridle - the head sail will be offset a bit. Since the bridle load is very large compared to the headsail load, I didn't worry about the headsail angle.
Spliced to the bridle is a Kong Chain Gripper® connecter. This device straddles the chain (we used ¼" High Tensile G4 chain).
The Chain gripper is available from Defender for about $20.
Early in the process, we inspected the splice between the rope and chain portions of the rode. As the photo above illustrates, it was ready for failure. We decided to retire the short section of chain that was on board at purchase and get 70' of 1/4" HT chain, giving us effectively nearly 85' of chain with the bridle attached.
This was sufficient for an all chain rode most of the time where we normally anchor.
We spliced the chain to the existing rope rode - end for end to ensure fresh rope when we needed. We decided to use a long splice to retain a higher portion of the strength and reduce the risk of rust loss.
Elizabeth
Anne whipped the line about 1' from the end. A strong, tight whipping was
applied to keep the line from unraveling.
Two
of the three strands were inserted into the end of the chain from opposite
directions. Eventually, they would be pulled up tight to the whipping.
T
he
strand not used in the first link and one of the strands exiting the first link
are woven back through the second link in opposite directions.
The process continues, each link picking up the strand from two
links back and
the longest of the two strands from the current link. This splice doesn't
look as nice as the back splice and it really isn't much strong
er (if any), but
it does admit more air to the anchor chain, thus reducing rust somewhat.
It also feeds a bit better through the windless.
The remaining two shots show the splice nearly complete (the bitter ends of the three strands are exposed and even), and complete with the bitter ends whipped into place.
Not shown in the photographs, the bitter end of the rope rode is bolted to the under side of the deck cleat, ensuring a strong attachment if the bridle and windless both fail. Also not shown, a short piece of chain is back spliced to the bitter end of the anchor rode and knotted into a figure eight that will hopefully hang up on the hawse pipe if everything failed.
This multiple failure happened to me once on our previous catamaran and only the knot saved the boat. The chain stretched and had to be replaced, both the primary and backup bridles failed, and the windless pulled out of its mountings. There was no boat damage but we were only one of two boats left in an usually crowded anchorage - the others were all destroyed.