Tidying up the deck - bow roller and hawse pipe

The original layout of the deck was cluttered, leaving little area to stand when on the bow. In addition to this the hawse pipe into the rope locker was too small a diameter to let the rope pass easily through. No eyes or chain could go through it either.

To fix things up a bit I decided to mount a bow roller to hold the anchor and fit a larger hawse pipe to allow better access to the locker.

There were just two problems with this idea. First, the bow is molded where the chain plate is meaning that I would have to build up to put the bow roller in place. Second there is a floatation chamber under the forward deck that the new hawse pipe would have to pass through.

In the photo the flotation chamber runs from under the forward windows on either side up into the bow.

Cutting a hole through the flotation chamber didn't seem like a really smart idea, so some glassing would be necessary.

First thing was to build up the area around the chain plate molding to make a surface to bolt the bow roller through. This was done with epoxy and filler shaping and sanding by hand to get the final shape. You can see the new hawse pipe sitting in place to get an idea of layout.

I then set about slowly grinding away the old pipe to open up the hole into the flotation chamber and then into the locker. In this photo you can see the hole cut through the deck and through the chamber.

And in this one, all the way down into the locker.

I then built up many layers of glass to create a new, larger pipe and reseal the chamber so that it was airtight and buoyant again.

The new pipe ready for sanding and filling.

Looking down through the new hawse pipe and new glass work.

The new layout of the deck fittings.

Removing and repairing the old thru hull

This old thru hull once served as the drain for the sink which has long since been removed.

A previous owner decided that the best way to deal with the remaining fitting was to shove a cork into it and paint over it.

As part of fixing up the hull and removing all the old unnecessary fittings the thru hull had to go.

Using a small grinder the old fitting was cut out of the glass. It was not possible to simply unscrew it as it had been glassed in on the inside.

The hole was then flared out to a big shallow cone shape to allow many layers of new glass to be epoxied in to fill it.

The hole from the inside after cutting out the fitting.

I then wedged a wax paper covered backing plate over the hole on the inside to give me a surface to build up against.

Staring with the largest diameter first circles of glass were epoxied into the depression. In total around 20 layers of glass were built up over the hole.

The glass build up was kept slightly lower than the surrounding surface to allow some thickness for filler to be applied to smooth the surface.

Once cured the glass was rough sanded and cleaned then faired with epoxy filler.

After a bit more sanding it is hard to tell there ever was a thru hull here.