Moody 336 - Installing a Windlass

Quick Windlass Installed in Moody 336

Our Moody was never fitted with a windlass and the optional one from new is the Royal manual one, but if we were going to fit a windlass we wanted to be able to retrieve it easily and at speed. Having light tackle on her meant that we was never happy that we would stay in one place when we dropped the hook, and even though it may be light tackle it was a back breaking job to retrieve which meant it was not the pleasant have a nice dinner in a anchorage sort of experience.

In considering a Windlass there are a number of things that require attention, of course the Windlass must fit on the deck, in this case on the strengthened platform over the anchor locker, be powerful enough for the job in hand, and if its to be powered do you have a battery bank in the bow or run cables from the engine.

There is a lot of talk about what is the best power set up, having a battery bank at the bow would certainly be less draw when working and less loss in electricity than a long cable run and battery bank at the bow might be better if for example at a later stage wanted to fit a bow thruster. But our thinking was, we had to run a cables to Bow in any event whether lighter ones for a battery to battery charger or heavy ones which might need to be heavier should the battery bank need to be larger for a bow thruster so we decided to edge our bets and run 50mm all the way through. More than heavy enough for windlass to be run from the engine in the case of battery failure, and if we changed our minds later and wanted another battery bank at the bow they could be used for 2nd alternator or a battery to battery charger, overkill I know but it wouldn't have been that much more work to run the heavier cable (anybody who has tried to run 50mm cable from the engine bay to the bow will know it sounds a lot easier that it really is).

We was keen to have a Rope drum as well as a gypsy so we could use it on the deck, for example we keep the Tender upturned on the deck and use a spare Halyard to winch it over the Guard, the rope drum just makes this job a little easier, and we have now used it to winch someone half way up the mast in a bosons chair, although we still clipped on a halyard just in case, but it was a lot easier than winching by hand.

After Much deliberation we decided on the Quick Genius with rope drum as it was the only one we could find that fitted all our requirements, we already had 40 metres of 8mm chain so we got one to match that. It was a bit low so we also got a readymade plastic riser and extended bolts for it, I believe they had to get it is special from Italy but it only took a few days and was approx. £25 extra, I suppose we could have made a riser but we had enough work ahead of us and an extra £25 in the budget was neither here or there and extra long Stainless steel bolts would have probably been a couple of quid each.

By far the biggest job was not installing the Windlass itself it was running the cables to power it. We started the job in the fore cabin removing the ceiling panels, and then the wall panels and shelve assemblies, these were quite easy as there was only a few well positioned screws and once found could be extracted from the cabin. We could not see how the L piece that covers the rear of the Rope / chain well, surprisingly we had to peel back the lining to expose 4 screws that held it in place, we used a hair dryer to get it as warm as possible first, and although it was not ideal we was able to stick it back on (with waterproof PVA from builders yard) when we put it back together later in the project.

From here we run the 50mm cables Aft along the starboard side into the top of the wardrobe, down the back of the wardrobe into the base of wardrobe, into the side of the saloon seating along there and up into the area behind the navigation table for later connection into switch.

When doing a large job like this think about what else you may want to achieve, We wanted more 12v cigar lighter and 240v sockets so we ran these cables at the same time, also we needed to run extra cables for Windlass for switch, of course particular care must be paid to securing the cables and protecting them from being bashed about. in this hostile environment, also use good quality ones, tinned, and with casings durable to the oils and diesels, seawater, they are more expensive but you do not want to have to do the job twice.