Here is the bow welded, smoothed and primed. Looks great! I have cut out the first anchor roller slot and we hauled up the anchor to see how far out ( roughly ) it would need to go.

We considered all sorts of anchor designs, but leaned towards something simular to the one in the Dashews book " The Offshore Cruising Encyclopoedia" photos. Our largest anchor, a 110 lb Bruce, will need some space to pivot down as it is launched. A pivoting style roller stops the anchor from swinging and hitting the bow. More importantly, a 45 degree tilt makes it much easier to haul up

.(Diag below.)

Excuse my anchor design ( an anchor specialist I'm not hehe! ) When it comes to hauling up an anchor, unless the roller is huge, it's a very hard pull just as the anchor reaches the roller. The center of gravity must turn 90 degrees with such a small point of leverage. With such a huge anchor this is a real strain on the windlass.
If the anchor only had to tilt 45 deg. then ride up for a bit, the leverage is much better and the strain on the winlass would be so much less. This all works in theory but we'll have to try it out.

Meanwhile, lurking below the boat, Gena is installing the mount for the sonar sensors. In the photo to the left is the bare bones of it.

the pipes will come up inside to a flange where the thru-hulls nuts will spin on. This shelf must be level with the sea bottom or the sonars won't work as well.

The hull still only has the small holes in it so nothing is weakened.