Bow Pulpit & Anchor Hawse

A couple years ago when I still had the dying Atomic Bomb, I had hit the SSA dock while coming alongside singlehanded and the engine was acting up on me. I wasn't going fast but it was enough to bend the pulpit significantly and really messed the pulpit up. Last year I tried to salvage it by having some new forward supports made and applying some brute force to bend it back into shape but ultimately it was just not to be and after sailing for a season with one of the mechanical terminals refusing to stay connected or be bent back into shape, I decided that it was enough of a safety issue that I should bite the bullet and get a new pulpit. I went to talk to Marc McAteer at Atlantic Spars & Rigging who I have worked with several times in the past. I really like Marc. He is not cheap, but he's honest and very professional. They do really great work for a competitive price and I have always enjoyed working with him. Thus far I have gotten lifelines, a table leg, and a bow pulpit from him and each transaction has been great. Check out www.atlanticspars.com for more information about what he might be able to do for you.

I have long thought that it would be good to have a welded instead of mechanical pulpit. It's much stronger, stiffer, and safer. I also have thought that having a double-rail pulpit would significantly increase stiffness. So I asked Marc to incorporate both of these features (well, actually he recommended welded construction and I didn't disagree). I also wanted to have lights installed on the pulpit so that I would have legal navigation lights (I'm told that the doghouse style nav lights are not technically legal for use while sailing at night because they are obscured by the jib). So I had Marc install some LED lights which you can see in the pictures at the corner of the forward upright post and the top rail.

2 other noteworthy features of this pulpit are that the lower rail does not go around the bow. This is to allow clearance for the furling drum. Also, note that the lifeline connection for the upper lifeline is in line with the LOWER rail and the lifeline connection for the lower lifeline comes to the deck. This means that the lifelines go down at the bow and this is by design to allow for the foot of the jib to clear. If the upper lifeline tied into the upper rail, this would cause the jib foot to be located really high with bad results for available sail area.

In addition to the bow pulpit in these pictures you can see a new anchor hawse which I recently installed. My old hawse was too small for the chain shackle to go through and it forever drove me crazy having to go below and take the shackle off to feed it up through the too-small hawse. So I bought a bigger hawse and installed it. Fortunately, Andrew Cole helped me put it in and he made sure that I installed it the right way, with the hinge on the forward, not aft side. This helps to keep water from running down the hawse. The chain comes out of the back of the hawse in this arrangement.

Here are the pix:
Overview of the pulpit and hawse.
Close up of the forward posts where they attach to the deck and the hawse. You can see the chain clearance hole in the aft side of the hawse.
Aft portside lower post for the pulpit. You can see the lower lifeline attachment point in this picture, along with the ultimate roller furling line lead.
Port side of the pulpit with roller furling lead. Here you can see where the upper lifeline ties in at the upper rail.
The pulpit bases are through-bolted with backing plates made of 1/4" G10. Here you can see the aft starboard backing plate. A close up of the backing plate. Sorry it's a bit blurry. Hard to take pix up there!