The problem is the bridge deck. Or, more specifically, the helm station, winch's, and toybox.

  There's room for some things fore/aft of the recessed cockpit area, and as you point out, under the winches.

  If you go with say, 50' of high-strength G70 armorgalv chain, and then an all-dyneema rode hollow webbing as a chafe guard for the next 50' to 100', you'll have a very light, nearly-bombproof rode system that will fit in any of those three locations. 

  Note:  as with an all-chain rode, the dyneema will need a snubber system on deck to prevent shock loading.  It will be stronger, lighter, sturdier, and more uv-resistant than nylon, but the complete lack of stretch would hammer the boat in a storm.

  You could break down an aluminum danforth-style anchor to fit in either location as well, and that will give the best holding power on soft bottoms. 

  Though if you're really cruising, you'd probably also want a spade or rocna type anchor for hard-packed bottoms or coral, but that would be a lot heavier -- too heavy to put in a toybox that you're moving by hand every time you go into and out of a marina slip. 

  You'd probably want to mount the heavy anchor outside the toybox, under the beam, in a location you don't have to fiddle with when collapsing or expanding the boat.

If we imagine the beam is 20'. Then splitting the beam in half is 10', which is pretty much the limit of the trailerable ww cabin width. My guess is the 10' split line is at the lee edge of the ww outside cabin seats.

  You'd definitely have to split it there for a 12' collapsed width because the bunks extend under those seats.

  Which means that if you want to collapse on the water, the recessed cockpit and toybox(es) would either have to be:  a) removable, or  b) not present. 

  If you move the winches closer together, you might be able to come up with a system with a hinge at the top that flips the leeward half of the cockpit upside down onto the outside seats.  That would probably get you down to 12' wide, but would also make it tough to get inside the windward hull.  The system would be more for trailering and less for marinas.

  Or... you could accept a 14' collapsed width for marinas, which is still a common beam limit for marinas.  40' to 50' monohulls are very common now, and a stock Beneteau Oceanis 41 is 14' wide.

  If you can fiddle with the design enough to get the on-water collapsed width down to 14', you're set for cruising.  Then perhaps make 2' to 3' of that a removable cockpit/toybox/winch area that can be popped out for trailering.  I think we'd still be a foot off with the current design, but that's close enough to allow a solution.

  The tender would still have to be moved outside the beams, though, for marinas and trailering, and the motor controls switched over.

  I'd go with a slightly different design, but since I consider the Ex40 to near-optimal as it is (just not for my personal design criteria), I'll put that in another thread.

  Not just out of respect for the design, but also as recognition that I'm not sure how much it can be improved upon given its constraints and goals.

        - Mike

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Posted by: Mike Crawford <mcrawf@nuomo.com>

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