Bow roller replacement, new CQR and Bruce rollers - 2010

January 2011 - At Marina Cortez, San Diego, CA

We want to replace these bow rollers with two new ones so that we can have both anchors on the bow.

Old bow rollers.

 Our anchor windlass was a Seawolf Simpson Lawrence and was old. It has not been made for at least ten years. We did get it working and decide to go anchor out in a couple weeks. About a week before I tested it and could not get it to work. Our boat came with a 45lb CQR anchor and 3\8 chain. The previous owner (PO) said he never broke loose with the anchor. He did a fair amount of anchoring at the Channel Islands CA. We also have a stern windlass the PO installed. Nice setup.

 The old setup was the CQR rested against the furler bracket. There also was a block on the lower part of the bow roller that was out off the bow. You would tie a line to the anchor and put it through the block and then pull the anchor out to launch it. Same to retrieve it. It worked but it was not good for our long range plans.

So I decide that the anchoring is too important in our future as we will be anchoring out a lot when we get to the Sea of Cortés (Gulf of California). Also I love anchoring out and in San Diego bay it is fine also. It to me is like sitting at you house on the front porch just chilling.

So I research a lot of windlasses and bow rollers. Oh did I forget to mention we need to modernize or bow rollers. A fellow Islander Freeport owner Tom Brown had just done the same project. So I more than less copied what he did. I liked the windlass he chose and the bow roller setup. On mine I wanted to be able to store both anchors on the bow rollers if need be and be able to launch and retrieve them without a problem. It had to easy enough so my wife could do it at night if need be from the helm.

Old Bow rollers:

 I bought on Toms suggestion a Plow anchor roller from Windline that was supposed to hold up to a 45lb CQR . Had to have it modified so the pin would fit.
I also decide I wanted a self launching claw type anchor roller for the Bruce anchor. This roller I got from Kingston. It is a Bruce -25 anchor roller and has three wheels and is designed specifically to self-launch Bruce or Claw anchors up to 44 lbs.

 I was first told to contact Benchmark Custom Welding for a good price on the bow rollers fabrication. When I went there he said he was going out of business. Since then he decided not to go out of business. He told me to contact Thomas Marine. I did and they were great. Not to say they are not expensive but to me this project is worth any money as it is well spent. They did a fine job. You can see two of the guys from Thomas Marine in the photos sizing up the bow for the fabrication. They were at the boat a couple times. First time they told me to remove the bow pulpit. Then they cam back again for more sizing. Then they bid on the job.

You can see our bow pulpit sitting on deck

 Thomas Marine shortened the Bruce roller and curved the ends, they also added some loops I asked for on both rollers for tying down the anchors. On the CQR roller they added a piece of SS plate that connected to the Bruce roller.

Thomas Marine shortened the Bruce roller and curved the ends, they also added some loops I asked for on both rollers for tying down the anchors. On the CQR roller they added a piece of SS plate that connected to the Bruce roller. They also had to add some mounting holes and cut part of the bow pulpit stanchion away. The braced the CQR  roller underneath. They also mad a completely new bow chain plate.

We installed the whole system ourselves, then put back the bow pulpit and Harken jib furler.
It was a lot of work. Everything can be gotten to though through the access ports and the chain locker.

It has all worked out great but we have not yet used the system to anchor.