Why do I need a bow Pulpit?

LastOne

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I have a '93 208 Adventure with a badly chipped bow pulpit. I all ready have the replacement pulpit (bought last spring on EBay, someone ran out of money on a rebuild) and am planning to replace the old one next spring. Is there any really good reason that I shouldn't just fill the bolt holes, restore the gelcoat and shorten the bowrail extention and forget this "piling grabber" (no seamanship comments please)?
 

nitrox32

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If you don't anchor your boat then's no reason for the bow pulpit. Having owned a boat without one, if you archor a lot then you'll want something to keep the anchor line off the gelcoat and rubrail or you'll be damaging both while pulling the anchor up or while at anchor.
 

uncljohn

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Having a bow pulpit allows your marina to charge you an extra 3' of LOA for winter storage..... :roll:

I certainly like the look of Grady's WITH a pulpit over those without one.
 

CJBROWN

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Some of us use a stainless roller assembly mounted to the bow in front of the anchor locker flip door, like one of these:

WNDAR3-200.jpg


It's a WINDLINE AR3 model. There's plenty of ply coring in that section of the deck and through bolting is easy. We just mount them so the chain drops just off the rub rail.

No pulpit required for anchoring. :wink:
 

92explorer

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If you don't use it and are interested in selling, I might be interested in buying if the price is right either one badly chipped or not
 

midnight-rider

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Only if you

Have friends , wife or girlfriend who will be your anchor wench...... :shock: Makes it alot easiar to bring the hook up..plus makes a greak plank to make unwanted guest walk off.
 

Walkers Edge

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CJ,
Question about that roller on a 208 with no pulpit:
Does this allow you to secure your anchor to the bow when not anchored?
If so how does your chain drop into the locker? Did you enlarge the hole the rope feeds through when the locker door is closed?
 

CJBROWN

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Walkers Edge said:
CJ,
Question about that roller on a 208 with no pulpit:
Does this allow you to secure your anchor to the bow when not anchored?
If so how does your chain drop into the locker? Did you enlarge the hole the rope feeds through when the locker door is closed?

I use a 13lb danforth knock-off, it fits into the anchor locker after cutting off an inch or so from each side of the pivot bar the flukes are welded to. So no, it's not stored on deck, it stores into the locker as stock.

I run 30' of 1/4" chain and 250' of 7/16 3-strand nylon. You have to 'dig a hole' so to speak, into the line and chain at the bottom of the locker to fit the shank of the anchor down into.

I spliced the line onto the last chain link so the whole chain and line would feed out over the roller. If you use a swaged link it catches on the roller guides.

Pulled the pin and threw it away.

In retrospect I would use 1/2" line, not for strength, but to make it easer to grab for retrieval. Would probably be even more difficult to get all of that into the locker though.

I put a marker at 150' so I have an idea of how much line is out. At a 5:1 scope, 150' is good for 30' of water. Rarely anchor in deeper depths unless it's for fishing with a short scope.

When we go to the river lakes I also bring a sand anchor, one of those folding deals, with a springy-recoil rode and 50' of floating poly, and an iron beach stake. Handy for tethering the boat off the beach, stern-in. Pic below with this setup. You just wade ankle deep and step up on the swimstep. Getting on and off the bow while beached-in is a royal pain.

My setup is easy to retrieve with the roller, and no dragging chain over the rub rail, that would be a no-no in my book! One might get by with a lighter high-tensile fortress, but I have always believed that more chain and more weight = better holding.

DSC01022.jpg
 

CJBROWN

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Almost forgot...
I installed one of these line chocks behind the roller assembly so I could 'turn' the rode and tie it off either bow cleat.

34468.gif
 

Walkers Edge

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Gotcha, Thanks
Looks like the only way to store the anchor on the bow is with a pulpit.
I'd like to be able to use my whole locker for rode storage.
 

CJBROWN

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Walkers Edge said:
Gotcha, Thanks
Looks like the only way to store the anchor on the bow is with a pulpit.
I'd like to be able to use my whole locker for rode storage.

A pulpit is really the only way to store an anchor on deck, ready to run, on these smaller boats. If I had one badly chipped, and a new replacement, I would probably keep it. If I was paying for moorage and it was going to cost me an extra $50 a month for a bigger slip then I probably wouldn't. :wink:

Not sure you'll get enough 'drop' in your rope locker if you intend to use a powered windlass. But yes, you would have lots of room in there with no anchor.
 

KingJ

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We have a slip and we anchor a lot and use the same Windline roller that Chris turned us on to. It works very well. (and the two 208s look awesome when side-tide---for whatever that's worth!)

I also took the advice of another member here a while back and lodged about a 2.5 ft long by 4in diameter PVC tube down the anchor locker to keep a space for the anchor shank to always fit in upon retrieval. As advertised, the chain and line are easily fed into the locker around the PVC tube, and then the shank slots into its place every time. I use 30ft of rusted chain and only 100 ft of line, with a spare 200ft of dedicated stored line in case we'd need to anchor in anything deeper than that.
 

enfish

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KingJ said:
We have a slip and we anchor a lot and use the same Windline roller that Chris turned us on to. It works very well. (and the two 208s look awesome when side-tide---for whatever that's worth!)

I also took the advice of another member here a while back and lodged about a 2.5 ft long by 4in diameter PVC tube down the anchor locker to keep a space for the anchor shank to always fit in upon retrieval. As advertised, the chain and line are easily fed into the locker around the PVC tube, and then the shank slots into its place every time. I use 30ft of rusted chain and only 100 ft of line, with a spare 200ft of dedicated stored line in case we'd need to anchor in anything deeper than that.

Now that's a great idea, KingJ! I like the PVC pipe idea. We've got 300 feet of 3/8" line and 30 feet of chain. I'm always digging a hole in the anchor locker to get the shank in there.
 

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS

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King, with that 30/100 combo what is the deepest you anchored with a regular 2-3 MPH running current? I want to do something like that on my V-20 and i'm debating the length of the chain, i was thinking about 20 feet, but i might like your set up better.
I don't remember if i posted about the 4" PVC pipe here, but i had made the same set up in a previous boat and the way i mounted the pvc was; i used a 4" flange and screw it/5200'd on a piece of 3/4 plywood i had glass in the bottom of the locker.

P.S Don't forget to put a hole in the bottom of the pipe for drainage.
 

KingJ

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Sorry for the late reply guys! The pvc pipe is just barely long enough to lodge in there. There’s so much going on with line and chain it just thankfully jams in and stays. The length is the key so that it just fits in... But, definitely another member’s idea. Thanks again Great Grady!

I try to anchor in shallow like 20 to 30 ft….. never over night yet (lucky with moorings) and I'm sure I’d do something different then. But for day BBQ and snorkel trips, we pick a shallow cove and tuck in. We have a stern anchor and more line on board in case that’s necessary. To keep the extra stern anchor space-worthy, I sawed the long ears off (relatively smallish Danforth) so that it will fit/slide into a 5 gal bucket with line and minimal chain. For our main tackle, more than our big Danforth anchor, I find that it’s the chain that actually holds the (our small) boat…and my buddies with bigger vessels who do over-nighters are going all chain…. I thought the safe-rule was 1 foot of chain to match every foot of boat? So far, for us anchoring in anything over 50ft would be an exception in bad weather, and then I’d put it all down and the GPS drift alarm etc… or beat it back to port?

Do any of you all actually drift-anchor overnight at sea with a sea anchor? That is something that I aspire to do.
 

KingJ

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I thought the safe-rule was 1 foot of chain to match every foot of boat…up to a certain length?

And, do any of you all actually drift-anchor overnight at sea with a sea anchor?