No Dock Vacation for us!
09 August 2014 | St. Georges, Grenada
Lynn
Lest one would think that having the boat on the dock has been a mini-vacation for us (although the pool and real showers ARE pretty darned nice!), here's a bit of an update on what we have been up to since we got back from our Ontario visit.
Our anchor locker was designed for one anchor rode. We have a double bow roller, so we can carry two anchors up there, but the locker was never designed with this in mind. While we were prepping to leave from Canada, we borrowed part of the idea of a fellow Niagara owner to make a two (or three) tier system for our two rodes. This was not a satisfactory system for us, as it always necessitated Ken being in the foc'sle, breaking down the chain as I hauled the anchor, leaving no one at the helm. Generally, this wasn't a problem for safety, but sometimes it didn't leave us feeling as good with it as we should have. Plus it was a pain in the butt, especially if we had a large amount of chain out, as we would have to empty out some stuff from the forward area so Ken could access the lowest area for the anchor. Not a good situation.
While we were in St. Martin, I started the renovation process on the anchor locker. I ripped out the shelving I had fibreglassed in back at QCYC, and made the locker one big area again. The secondary rode, which we very rarely use now since we got our Rocna anchor, was shoved into the "lower locker" and left to languish, since it was now inaccessible under 250 feet of primary chain. Now I could knock down the chain through a deck plate, and Ken could stay at the helm.
Last week, the renovation was finished. Cyril, one of the grounds guys here, found a length of 3 inch PVC plumbing pipe for me (I was not about to buy a 10 foot length at the store). Since our primary chain is out (we are getting new chain, and have already found a new use for the old chain on a dredging barge), the locker is as accessible as it will get. We cut and fit the PVC pipe to run from the secondary rode's hawser down to the lower locker. Supports were made to to allow me to fibreglass it to the hull, so it wouldn't get knocked around by the primary rode that would live around it. So now we can use the secondary anchor, although Ken will have to pull the chain through. That's fine, since we don't anticipate needing it very often at all. The main thing is that the primary anchor is much easier to use now.
This was one job that was much easier to do at a dock.... since anchoring would have been impossible! And the pool and showers made doing the work in an area that was about 35 C, humid and dirty a little easier to take.