Well I would look carefully at Hallberg Rassey as they make thoughtfully designed and well constructed boats, and they also engineer the heck out of them when you look below. I have not found that in Beneteaus and Hunters I have delivered. Like other delivery skippers, I eventually refused to deliver them. My thought is that in our Tartans, the chock is part of a system to distribute the shock load from anchor or mooring and I would be reluctant to put all the load in one place (on the cleat) without a whole lot of reinforcement below to distribute the load. In anchoring and mooring, I think folks tend not to realize that these are [systems [/u]and not individual components. This is where anchor marketers claim their anchor "won't drag like the others"---a preposterous claim as dragging obviously is as contingent on competent setting of the anchor, specific bottom conditions, decent amounts of chain for caternery, rode length, etc. Personally, I would not chop up a Tartan because many of them have been extensively and successfully cruised in their present configuration and I know I would not buy one with a lot of major mods. I spent a couple days in an open roadstead with 4-6 foot waves in 25 to 32 kts without a problem with nothing really special--I moved the snubber to distribute the chafe, but that is all. Seems extreme to modify the boat to accommodate chafe. But it is your boat.
Ray
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