Chain Locker Improvements

[David Mathis]

Salt vs fresh water effect on chain
As the years pass by and our age provides a break on movie tickets and park admissions, we now spend our time cruising inland. The boat gets considerable use but hasn't seen salt in 10+ years. Although we spend considerable time at anchor, the 20+ year old 5/16 galvanized chain looks as good as the day it left the store. It's run through the windlass several times a week, drags on sometimes sandy bottoms, rubs on rocks, and has much use, but no salt. It's wet much of the time, either in the locker or underwater. We don't try to dry it before it goes into the locker. It's quite notable how much salt destroys metal parts and how long that same metal lasts in a wet but non-salt environment.

[mako]

OP, can you rig an exhaust cowl to your locker, but through the deck? Rear facing of course, and inside the locker run a pvc pipe all the way to the bottom. You can slot the bottom of the pipe. That way you're pulling air from the bottom and having constant ventilation through the chain. You may need to upsize to schedule 80 pvc if your chain is heavy and would crush standard sch40.