Anchor Well Work

This afternoon Wally and I fiber glassed the bottom of the anchor well. Wally has been giving to me invaluable guidance on what materials and techniques to use, as well as providing me with tools and materials such as fiberglass fabric and the ply wood that we will use to fill in the hole left after I removed the inspection hatch. However, when it came down to it Wally got "hands on" and he worked from the top while I worked from the bottom. The result is as shown on the photo. It may not look impressive but it shows that the bottom of the anchor well and a perimeter of 3 inches around it has been fiber glassed. Now that I have a "feel" of the tools, materials, and technique I will have a go at stage 2, which will be to fiberglass the longitudinal stringers near the top of the well and the corners where the hull meets the bulkhead. Wally will come by during the day and we will mark and cut out the ply for filling in the opening in the bulkhead. It will be two sheets of 10mm ply with a slight gap in between, as is the existing bulkhead. The ply will be bedded in with epoxy resin.

At the top of the photo you can see the hawse pipe that feeds the chain from the electric windlass to the lower level of the anchor well. A previous owner had cut the hawse pipe and abandoned the use of the lower level. The hawse pipe drops the chain too close to the bulkhead and the chain tends to stack up resulting in a jam at the windlass unless I reach in and knock the stack over. Wally had the same problem on his boat and he built a ramp to force the chain toward the middle of the anchor well which has been successful.