Three things caused me to do this modification...1. I was tired of stubbing my toes on the windlass, 2. I was tired of the lazy sheet getting caught on the windlass when I unfurled the genoa, 3. The last straw was when the windlass would leak if we took water over the bow, causing a flood in the V berth. I repaired the leaks in the windlass with a kit from Maxwell, but figure that it will only be a matter of time before the O rings go bad again and I'll have another mess to clean up. This cover has been replaced with an inverted stainless bowl. It looks much nicer and more nautical. It still accomplishes all of the above goals.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Three things caused me to do this modification...1. I was tired of stubbing my toes on the windlass, 2. I was tired of the lazy sheet getting caught on the windlass when I unfurled the genoa, 3. The last straw was when the windlass would leak if we took water over the bow, causing a flood in the V berth. I repaired the leaks in the windlass with a kit from Maxwell, but figure that it will only be a matter of time before the O rings go bad again and I'll have another mess to clean up. This cover has been replaced with an inverted stainless bowl. It looks much nicer and more nautical. It still accomplishes all of the above goals.
I put the Edson motor mount on the port rail since it was the only place I could put it. It holds a 15hp Mercury. I noticed that the rail would flex when it was rough and I wanted to put a stop to it before it caused damage. I installed an angled brace from the top rail down to the deck and it is very solid now.
Aft Washdown
I took out the aft shore water regulator, since I never use it anyway, and changed it over to a washdown for the cockpit area. I had a forward shore water regulator put in by my dealer when the boat was new. In the near future we will be retired and spending much more time on the boat. We will have a dog onboard and there will be times when it won't be able to go to shore in a timely manner. I will train it to do it's "duty" on a piece of outdoor carpeting and then I will be able to wash down the area using this spray hose.
Friday, January 29, 2010


I added adjustable genoa cars made by Garhauer so that I could adjust the genoa lead without having to tack. This has proved to be a great modification. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is tired of putting up with poor sail trim because it is too much hassle to tack the boat just to make an adjustment. My wife couldn't care less! She is happy if the boat is moving forward, I'm not happy unless I feel that I am getting the appropriate performance for the conditions. What she does like is that she no longer has to assist me in completing a tack just to adjust the genoa car.



I installed a washdown pump in the bow to help with getting the mud and debris off the anchor rode as the anchor is being retrieved. It was originally mounted, in the position shown, on the shelf just under the windlass. This was a mistake! Pumps push water much better than they lift water, so I remounted the pump under the V berth at or near the waterline. Since I boat on the Great Lakes and we are not allowed to have macerators, I used the through hull for the forward macerator as the intake for the pump. It gets 12V power from the same source as the windlass with an in-line fuse specifically for the pump. The output goes into the anchor locker as shown in the second picture and the hose is connected and stored as shown in the last pictrue. It's easy enough to hang the coiled hose over the lifelines to get it out of the way when dealing with the anchor rode. There is also a switch under the cleat, which can't be seen in this picture, to shut off power to the pump so that it can't be run accidentally. You'll also notice that the bitter ends of both anchor rodes are cleated off! You'll only make that mistake once!


Thursday, January 28, 2010






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