Hello Gary Fiona and Jay
First: You said "I was thinking of putting a locker under the windlass forward of the v berth" There should already be a locker there. Is there not? The anchor locker bulkhead should be about 40" aft of the stem. This area is plenty big for one rode. But not two. One of my rodes is 40' of chain and 300' of 5/8', nylon. My anchor windlass, a Simpson Lawrence 555 is directly above this locker, and straddling the bowsprit. The deck pipes for the rodes are 12" forward of the samson posts. This arrangement is the most common on Westsail 32's. All of this rode will easily self store in the locker. I do not have a wash down pump. If the rode comes up dirty I will simply lay it out on deck and address it separately after getting the anchor up. This is SELDOM the case as you can usually clean the rode and anchor as it is coming up. I use my windlass less than 5% of the time. I pull by hand as I am 7'3" and weigh 320#.
The 2nd rode is 250' of 5/16" HT chain, followed by 100' of 5/8” nylon, followed by 20' of 1/4" breakable polypropylene. Under the deck, the deck pipe drops into a 4" PVC pipe that is attached at the deck, This pipe is angled toward the sampson post and then between them. It runs through the bulkhead and into the locker that is under the bunk. It ends there. The chain rode will then drop vertically into this locker. You are right. The chain rode will stack very vertically and jam the flow after about 50' to 70'. You could address this issue at the time by knocking the pile over, or later by feeding the chain on to the deck until the anchor is up. Back inside the boat, the chain is run aft past the first locker under the bunk and into the bilge. Aft in the bilge and under the shower pan. I have a large removable section in this shower pan. I can easily grab and pull all the chain aft into the bilge area from here. When I wish to do so. On a previous W-32 I owned I led the anchor rode all the way aft to a cavity aft of the mast compression post. When dropping anchor, all of the rode will run out properly. Unless you have some baby diapers stored in the wrong places.
This system works for me. I've done it a long time and continue to do it. With that said, at present. my all chain rode is not even on the boat. It is my long distance cruising package. Locally I don't need the all chain so I remove it from the boat. I have only one anchor hanging off the bow at this time. When crossing an ocean (not when racing) all three of my rodes are ready to go although I will still store one anchor below just for better weight distribution.
I have sailed a W-32 a long distance that had the windlass on the foredeck. I understand why it was there. I did not like it there though. it created other problems. I believe the original arrangement with the windlass straddling the sprit is the better way to go. Good luck, keep us informed and feel free to ask any questions. Dave
