I appreciate the first hand experience! How much of that hobby horsing do you think can be fixed by shifting the chain locker to the forward compartment under the V berth? I don’t plan on sleeping up there so a pipe down the middle won’t be too big of an intrusion.
Also, money, time and difficulty no object, how would you set up the interior to be the most balanced for long sails?
OHhhhhhhh.... Now you've done it... I have been working on this very problem for many, many years. So far I haven't managed to convert my e27 into a Crealock 37 but I'm still working on it!
Seriously though I do have a few thoughts to consider:
First, rethink your chain/rode/ground tackle situation. It is going to be your biggest nightmare from a weights and balance perspective. I chose to use 1/4" HT chain for several reasons that you may not have thought of. First, 1/4"HT has a higher working load than 5/16" BBB so it is stronger. Second, it is lighter at .75 lbs/ft vs 1.1 lbs/ft. Third, it is more compact which is important not simply because it takes up less space but because it determines how much chain you can actually have in your anchor locker due to the required drop for your chain. I don't know how much experience you may or may not have with chain fall into an anchor locker but basically you need to have a minimum amount of vertical drop in order for the chain to pull itself down into a neat pile rather than simply backing up and jamming your windlass. If you don't have enough drop you will constantly be fighting with the rode at the two worst possible times; when you are trying to pick up your anchor (because you have 2 minutes before a container ship is going to run you over) or you are trying to drop your anchor (in chop and gusting winds as you are desperately attempting to maintain control while drifting wildly through a crowded anchorage).
Which smoothly segments us into the idea of using the forward storage area under the V-berth as a chain locker... I am guessing that you can see where I am going with this... As mentioned above there is a minimum dead vertical drop required for your anchor chain to behave itself and that drop is roughly 12" in this case. I am not sure the exact space under the V-berth that you were referring to so I will address both. The enclosed "storage tub" space all the way forward under the V-berth that is separated from the raw hull is only about 12" deep if I recall (it is about the depth of a paper towel roll). So if you were to run a hawsepipe into it from the forward "chain locker" bulkhead it would have several feet of horizontal run right before entering into the space which would increase the requirement for an even greater vertical drop. If you used the smallest pipe you could get away with (probably 2" PVC) you now have only 10" of drop coming after a significant horizontal run. As soon as you put 5' of chain in that space your drop is now 8" (since the chain is now stacking up) and the more chain that goes in, the less usable drop you have. In a nutshell, the chain will very quickly pile up in the tube. If you intended to bisect the V-berth itself with a pipe running right through the middle from the ceiling then maybe it could work but that vertical drop is required even when the chain locker is full. If you were thinking of running the chain into the bare hull then once again you would need to run a hawspipe with a horizontal component into a dedicated area in the hull that would contain the chain and keep it from flopping all over the place in big chop. I am not entirely convinced that this can't be done- especially if you don't care about the usability of the V-berth. The placement of the chain would undoubtably be much better as it would be much lower and significantly further aft. I suppose the only way to know for sure how much chain you could get away with would be to try it.
Next- anchors. I am using a 22 lb Rocna which I love with all of my heart. It is absolutely a heavy storm anchor for this sized boat. It is designed to hold a 13,000 lb boat in rough conditions. The nice thing about modern anchors is that they have much more holding power for their weight than traditional anchors and they work better in different bottom types. There is no reason to try to go bigger because there is nothing you could attach this anchor to on your boat that wouldn't tear out long before this anchor let go if it was set properly. That and there is no way you could carry any heavier anchor out on the bow without weight issues...
3rd- the windlass. I can absolutely guarantee that you will need a windlass if you have all that chain. Many people don't realize that you have to consider which windlass you are going to use while you are determining your anchor and rode combination because windlass gypsies (the pully that the chain and/or rope run over) are specific to an exact size and type of chain and rope. Not all windlasses have the right gypsy for your desired combination. You need to find a windlass that A.) matches your chain/rope combination, B.) is strong enough to haul your ground tackle up reliably, and C.) fits on your boat. Unfortunately windlasses are not light weight items so that adds even more weight on the bow. I chose a Lewmar Fisherman Pro horizontal deck mounted windlass with a 1/4"HT / 1/2" 3 strand gypsy. It is a beast and we have pulled the bow halfway into the water when we caught a snag once. It is designed for bass boats but works spectacularly on an e27 and is one of the lightest weight and most powerful windlasses that you are likely to find.
SOooo... that is all fine and good but what would I do if I could do anything??? Ideally I would probably try to mount my windlass up near the mast, run a pipe along the foredeck to the bow roller, Run a hawsepipe down along the bulkhead between the V-berth and head and create a chain locker just inside that bulkhead under the V-berth. Chain is heavier than water so I would shift the holding tank forward a few inches to accomodate the new chain locker. It would look like crap but I could keep my oodles of heavy chain since it would be much, much lower and much further aft for balance. It might even make the boat more stable.
But I am writing a novel here and haven't even gotten into tankage and the like yet... I will post my thoughts about tankage tomorrow.
Hope this gives you a few tidbits to ruminate on.
Fair winds!
