New aluminum anchor winch just finished building

I like the "fishboat" look, and having all the rode up on deck seems like a great benefit (and you could keep a secondary anchor rode in the original anchor locker). It also leaves you with great access to the foredeck cleat (which is somewhat blocked by something like the Lewmar 700 Pro).

Like you say, your boat, your rules :thup (but I like it anyway :D)
 
That's what I bought my Dory for Sunbeam,,a fish boat. The top photo with the side view of the drive end of the drum I cut in half is really the only tricky part to building it. You have to drill the winch motor's 4 screws that hold the gears in out to 1/4 inch and space it out after you get the drum inserted with a 3/4 spacer to make it come out flush to the outer winch flange. When you install the motor over the 4 long 1/4 bolts, it has to have about .020 or so clearance from between the sides of the new drum and the drive motor bushing which supports the new drum. There is no shaft through the new drum. You don't need one because both ends are supported by the original bushings from the 2000 lb winch.. Hope that all makes sense.
 
Went chasing dungeness crab today and tried out the new winch. (twice) at 30 feet and again at 50. I also pulled the anchor a few feet by hand on the 50 foot spot just to remind me why I took on this project to start with. The thing works like a dream. I know some don't think the 3/8 rode is heavy enough, but it didn't even look like it was straining when I pulled it against the heavy running tide along with a pretty fair breeze behind it. I am glad I put the double throw single pole switch on though. When I brought the anchor up into the sprint, I just bumped the temporary side a couple times and it was no problem to lay the anchor right where it supposed to be. There was 4 other C-Dories out crabbing the same area most of the morning. Don't know the name of them all, but Full Circle was one of them. Took most all day for the wife and I to get our limits though. Commercial guys really cleaned them out this year. Stopped at Coronet bay and cooked up a couple at their outer dock and just kicked back for a couple hours before loading the Lori-L and heading home for the hard part of the trip..(cleaning the boat up and cooking the things)
 
I am looking to build something similar only larger with a hand crank to put my shrimp lines on. I use a hose reel now but the plastic is getting brittle and cracking. I need one large enough to put 4 sets of shrimp line on it. we have 300 ft of 1/4 poly and another 75 ft of 5/16 lead line. I would like to go to 5/16 poly so need a bigger reel for that much rope. approximately 1500 to 1600 ft of line.
I like the simplicity of your design and it looks great.
 
Roger would you separate each of the lines with a "spacer" on the shaft? Also I would think you would want a fairly large diameter spindle, to make sure that the line came up fairly fast--with 1 1/2" diameter, it would take a long time to get that first 100 feet on the reel. (We used to use plywood reels with a dozen doweling rods for an 8" to 10" spindle, back in the 40's and 50's, for anchor lines, after they were washed and dried at home.

We did the same with the linen fishing line, before nylon, monofiliment and then Dacron etc. After each dip in salt water the fishing line had to be washed, then put on large reels to dry--and stayed there before being re-spooled on the fishing reels as we were going out to fish.
 
I do the same thing as you with the plastic spools Roger. I use electric wire spools, and if you get the right ones, they work pretty good. I found a size that holds 400 feet of 5/16 lead line. I use all lead line and they are not that heavy. I could see why you would only want to use a few feet of lead and some poly or whatever, but I use all 5/16 on my shrimp and crab pots both. On my crab spool, I use 4 75 foot lines on the same spool and just fasten the ends and continue on until I have all 4 on. It is kind of a pain to find a good storage spot on the Dory with it's limited back deck space, but if you use 1" galvanized water pipe and the mounts for it, it gets you by. you could stack 3 on the pipe and one mounted to the "T" that you use to crank the line onto. I use a 1/2 PVC pipe base flange and screw it into the side of the spool and thread a short piece of 1/2 PVC into it for a crank handle. Just transfer the handle to each spool. I use an ACE electric line hauler and the wife spools the line on as I bring them up. I have only been using 2 shrimp pots lately because if you get in the right spot, you get most of 2 limits in the first pot anyway. I'm talking spots. If you went with a single aluminum that would hold 1600 feet, it would be pretty big but probably manageable. I bought a 1600 foot spool at the Everett boat show a few years back and had to carry it back to the truck and it got pretty heavy by the time I got to the truck. I fished an 18 tri-hull for years and with it's open bow, I had a good place to haul the pots & spools. I just bought this C-Dory a short time ago and have been trying to get it set up to fish, crab, and shrimp the same basic way the tri-hull was. I have found out that I probably should have went for a 25 instead of the 22 though. A little more deck space would really been great, but I kinda like the 22, so will have to make it work. I realize the 22 is primarily a little cruiser, but I am trying to make it work for the best of two worlds. I'm only about 20 minutes north of you if you want to take a look at my setup or if I can help with anything.. It would only take a couple hours to make something that would work for the line you are using. It would be big, but doable I think.
 
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