Windlass for Sun Shine 36?

[nemesis]

I'm so happy I found this forum as I just purchased a Sun Shine 36. I'm still waiting for delivery, and what better way to pass time than to plan upgrades?

I want an anchor windlass / winch and would love some advice. The anchor locker on this boat is quite large leaving little space for a windlass except for on the locker door itself. I am uncertain as of where the best place to fit the windlass would be. I can only think of integrating it in the hatch door, or to fabricate a split hatch door where the front part would be housing the windlass and would be permanently fixed, while the aft door would be hinged and give me access to the locker.

Also, I was wondering if the hinges would hold if I simply added the windlass to the existing locker door, which would be the quickest, easiest and cheapest way. I have never fabricated anything out of fiberglass, so it would be a project that would probably be postponed... and putting the windlass on the locker door in the meantime is tempting... I could allways pay someone to fabricate something for me, but I'm thinking it would be very expensive... also, I am the kiund of guy that takes pride in doing stuff myself...

Any advice or photos would be greatly appreciated.

[MalcolmP]

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on the Sun Shine, a really well regarding and attractive Jeanneau

Not sure if this will help but there are some windlass images at:

www.jeanneau-owners.com/hintsandtipsindex.html

You will see this is all quite agricultural but strong, the windlass will need to take some big loads, so steel brackets are probably the way to go - The original Jeanneau ones were galvanised steel which is probably a cheaper option than stainless and if it is within thelocker it can't be seen anyway.

Can you attach some photos of the Sun Shine anchor locker ? I think that would help with ideas of possible solutions

I have seen locker lids split on other boats as you suggest, but the hinges by themselves certainly won't. Hopefully other Sun Shine owners with windlasses could send in some photos - that might take out some of the guesswork

[nemesis]

Thanks for the wonderful welcome. I will certainly upload pics once I get delivery (still waiting for some minor issues on the instrumentation to be sorted before delivery).

The location of the windlass in the pics seems like a great idea, I wish I had thought about that before, and I will certainly contemplate long and hard about this solution. Not only could it work, but it would also make my deck nice and tidy. It could also free up space for a tender/dinghy (other post). But does this location work well? In the documentation of the windleasses I have been looking at they note a minimum drop requirement of 40 cm below the bottom of the windlass. I've had a windlass before where there was not enough room between the windlass and the confinements of the locker. The rope/chain would often bunch up and cause the windlass to slip... I had a few very stressful moments

Pics of other installations on the Sun Shine 36/38's would be great!

[Don Reaves]

Welcome to the forum, Nemesis.

The guy in the slip next to me did as you said, splitting the anchor locker lid, installing the windlass in half. While it works and is convenient, it doesn't look very nice. He did beef up the hinges and put a big retaining bracket under the hatch, but it looks pretty cheap and it makes the other half of the locker that much less accessible.

So I wouldn't recommend this method until you evaluate all the alternatives.

Don

[hoppy]

I found an example of a Sun Shine 36 with a windlass mounted www.sailingworld.nl/en/occasions/jeanneau-sunshine-36-67616