Anchoring made easy............

Pictures are of a little project I did to my Down East 38 a short time ago. When I purchased the boat it had a totally "mickey mouse" hand operated anchor windlass and all the chain was stored in the fore peak of the boat. I installed a new Lofrans "Tigress" 1500 pound pull windless as far aft as I could on the fore deck and then angled the chain as it came through the deck into a large locker under the forward berth. I had to beef up the underside of the deck to spread the load around and did that with some teak and holly marine plywood I had in my shop. I was going to run a S.S. pipe from the underside of the deck to the chain locker knowing that I would be ruining the best bunk on the boat. After much thought, I mounted a couple of small pad eyes and a cleat. When the anchor is up, I lead the loose chain under the deck and pull it over to the side tight to the pad eye, tie it off, lead more chain down the side of the hull, under the mattress and to the chain locker. This is a bit of a hassle but I didn't screw up the large forward vee berth. I do the same after the anchor is down, I've anchored about 30 times with the Lofrans and have found it perfectly suitable of a boat of my size. We are dealers for the Lofrans windlasses and are selling them at prices that make them affordable to everyone...