There's nothing that induces despair so completely as a job that cannot be done.

Case in point. The windlass mounting. This was a cause for despair.

To handle the immense anchors (and attached chain), you need some mechanical advantage. This is what a windlass is for. We have a lovely, massive Simpson-Lawrence 555 to do the heavy lifting. We call it "Gimli, son of Gloin".

Darkness

There is, really, only one suitable location for this thing. It has to sit behind the staysail so that the chain can drop at least a vertical foot into the chain locker. To do this, the staysail furling drum has to be high enough off the deck that the chain won't rub against it.

I wish I had taken detailed pictures, but it was too upsetting. I have one picture of the drum itself. It's sitting on two massive toggles that keep it just 6" from the deck. It needs to be more like 16" from the deck.

We're partially rigged. Half the masts are up.

But we have the kind of God-awful problem that requires three experts (Clifton, Chuck and Bob) plus the owner to stand around and stare at for a few hours.

That's Not All

That's not the entire story of the drums and their locations. The headsail drum is also quite low and we run a risk of it being cracked (hard) by the anchor shanks.

It could stand to be raised as much as 16" to clear the anchor. But that might involve recutting the sail. That turns an hour of labor an expensive part into several hours of labor by two different crews.

After a lot of looking, there's just no place to put the windlass without moving the at least one furling drum.

Horseshoe Nails

To tune the rig, Red Ranger has to be floating. To be floating, she has to be tied to a dock, to be tied to a dock, she needs cleats. For cleats, she needs giant bolts and nuts. For the nuts, she needs a craftsman to can climb up into the anchor locker from the inside and hold a wrench. ("All for want of a horseshoe nail.")

We've been looking forward to this for a while.

But there's always one more thing. Gloom

Shoes and Feet

In discussing the drum options, I took a walk around the boat yard. There are a lot of boats, up on stands, not being used or worked on or anything.

More importantly, there are boats in awful, sublime states of disrepair and repair. Boats that may never float again. Boats which are being meticulously sanded down to bare wood. Boats with dangly bits and broken stuff. Boats with rotted lines and weeping rust.

Okay. I get it. We have issues. But we're not as bad off as some.