Anchor roller

Before starting this next boat project, we had a fabulous Thanksgiving, thanks to Frances, who really knows bow to do it. She makes her own pie crust and that, together with apples that were given to us by our dock mates, Lou and Janie, turned out a prize winning apple pie.

Even the turkey seemed just right, as did the squash, mashed potatoes and creamed onions. We say this every year, but this really was the best Thanksgiving!

On Saturday, we returned to our next boat project. Replacing the old anchor roller with one that would accept our new 35 lb. hinged plow anchor.

In previous posts, we showed us removing the old roller and cleaning the bow pulpit.  Now it was time to buy a new anchor roller.

We researched all of our alternatives (there weren't all that many) and decided on a Windline CRM-1 roller. Prices on the internet were all over the place but we settled on Defender Marine, which is close to us so we could actually see it and measure it. We saw this particular roller for almost $350 but at Defender, we paid $169.99 and we were able to talk to some real boaters who knew what we were trying to accomplish.

Then we drove back to the boat and test fit the new roller. Are any of these boat projects ever really easy?

Of course, the new roller doesn't fit the holes in the pulpit used by the old one. We'll have to close the old holes up with some epoxy and filler. We're not sure that the roller is far enough forward of the edge of the pulpit. The old roller that held our 18 lb Danforth stuck out much further.

Mounting this thing will take a little thought. We can't reach the pulpit using our regular ladder so we're going to have to bring down an extension ladder. The new roller is 3/16" thick steel, so drilling that should be fun, but doable.

We also brought home one of the two little ladders that hook on the cockpit coaming. The coaming is high and without these little ladders, it's really a big step to get on or off the boat.

This ladder was on the boat when we bought it and three years ago, we disassembled it and refinished the teak steps. We bought a second ladder that was almost an exact match for the original but it had oak steps.

Given the use this ladder has had over the past three years and the fact that it is outside in the cockpit all the time, it really isn't in bad shape, except that one of the rubber feet had given up the ghost.

When we refurbished this ladder the first time, we stripped the steps completely and applied five coats of Sikkens Cetol Marine Light. Even after being stepped on literally thousands of times since then, the Sikkens is still in very good shape. Only the step edges need attention. But, since it's home and it's cold outside, we'll disassemble it again and see if we can build up some Sikkens on the wear points.

Not very exciting, we know, but it's part of the fun we get out of maintaining our boat.

Sunday morning presented us with some ice here in Hartford. At 7 AM, we backed the car our of our garage and then slid all the way down to the street. Not a great way to begin a quiet Sunday morning.

Within a couple of hours, the ice melted and we decided to load one of our extension ladders into our station wagon and take it down to the boat yard. We wanted to get access to the bow pulpit so we could see how the new anchor roller would mount.

Perfect. We'll leave the ladder at the boat, locked to one of the jack stands, just in case someone else decides that they need our ladder.

What we're trying to figure out now is how far forward to mount the anchor roller. The old one, with the 18 lb. Danforth, stuck out a lot farther than this.

Maybe someone at the Silverton Owners Club can help us with this.

Below is a video we created about applying CPES to the teak strips we took off of the bow pulpit. If you know us, just skip the video. It's fairly boring and the audio levels are too low. But it gave us valuable practice in editing and with things the way they are, knowing that is a good thing.