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Hector 3K Windlass

One would think a windlass wouldn’t be bad …..but again, I stand corrected.  It was a big job.  The high gunnels made the job a nightmare.  Couldn’t go with a vertical windlass because of this and finding a good substantial horizontal windlass proved as difficult.  Fortunately with the CSY under the v berth in front of the storage locker there was a lot of room.  I cut it out and installed a flush hatch for access to this unused space.  At first it seemed like there would be lots of room but after mounting the brace, tray, dedicated battery charger, wiring and dual 31 AGM batteries it was all used up.

First after cutting access and installing the hatch I went to work on designing a bulletproof sturdy tray and brace for almost 200 pounds of batteries.  The brace I made out of 6″ 1/4″ wall heavy glass channel and the tray out of 1/2″ solid glass.  I made the tray surround out of heavy wall glass angle.  In the end it turned out so heavy duty I know I could park a car on it, but better to be over built than under.  I didn’t use any screws, every hole was drilled, then tapped then bolted for added strength and to avoid splitting or stress cracks later on.

The solid teak block the windlass sits on is 10 inches thick approximately, 10 inches wide and about 14 inches long.  This was glued to the deck with 5200 then through bolted to the deck with 1/2″ all thread and with backing plates and blocks.  Then the windlass was through bolted with 10mm all thread again through the block and the deck and with backing plates.  I’m sure you could haul the boat out by this block alone, lol.  All holes were filled with Life Seal and then the 1 1/4″ hole for the wiring was filled from under the deck up with expansion foam for extra measure and all wiring was left with what I call a drip loop, in the event any water gets on the wires it will run down the loop and drip off the bottom instead of following the wires and getting moisture etc in the actual wiring or connections.

I ran all wires through heavy wall 1 1/4″ PVC conduit glued and strapped to the bulkhead inside the locker to avoid damage to any wiring from the chain locker.  All ran through under the v berth to the new area under the hatch.  Then the 2awg ran up front to an 90amp breaker and switch on the wall in the v berth to turn off anytime or when not in use.  I installed a dedicated ProMariner12 charger with a dual lead 2 bank charging setup for the battery bank in the tray to always keep the batteries topped up.  As it turned out the LED’s from the charger illuminate the area and are easily visible to keep an eye on what is going on with the batteries and charger.  The charger was run by a dedicated 110v ac GFI plug and box wired to the new main AC panel.  I mounted dual 31 AGM’s with a total of 220ah’s of battery.  The batteries were wired in parallel to get maximum amps and I cut and crimped connections between batteries with 2 awg heavy marine wire.   Should be sufficient no matter how long it takes to get the rode up.  Also terminated one set of foot switches up front, one set at the helm in the pedestal and finally a 5 channel receiver and remote key fob so we could use it for other things like going up the mast, anywhere anytime.

This windlass is rated for a max pull of 2900lbs and will be used in conjunction with a single piece (no connections) 300 foot piece of BBB chain to finish the whole job off.


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