On Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:36:54 -0500, Gogarty
wrote:

In article m,
says...

(Snip)


A windlass is standard equipment on all serious boats, but as you say, a day
sailor like yours can make do without one.

No. It's not. Walk through a marina one day and look at who has a standard
issue windlass and who has a retrofit if any at all. The motor boats all have
windlasses. The sailboats are mostly retrofit.

As a general statement I'm not sure that you are correct. I can walk
through "my" marina and note that every sailboat, other then a couple
of day-sailors, has an anchor winch mounted on it's nose although I
have no way of knowing how many were fitted after purchasing the boat.

Our boat is 37 feet. Came with a deck anchor locker and no windlass and no
obvious way to install one. But we did it. Our ground tackle is 150 feet chain
spliced to 250 feet of rope and a 35 lb Delta. We tend to stay put when we
anchor. I gave up manhandling the rode years ago.
Cheers,

Bruce