Hey Walt,
I've been meaning to do just that for a while. Here is the writeup I went by - I gotta give this guys Al a lot of credit because I'm not sure I would have attempted it unless I saw his superb writeup. Thanks Al!
http://members.toast.net/boatguy/proj-14.htm
The biggest snag with doing this on the 248 is the limited room due to the "lip" not far behind the existing Hause pipe hole. I should have caught this but I didn't. I bought the Sprint 600
windlass that Al used. Everything was purchased on ebay. When I got the Sprint I tested it with a car battery (as Al wisely suggested) only to find it was DOA. I thought I would get screwed on the purchase since I actually had contacted the seller and bought it outside of ebay. When i contacted the seller they told me to take it to west marine since that's where they'd purchased it. I figured that WM would tell me to pound sand but they actually offered to replace it or upgrade to the more current version - the V700. For 50 bucks more they gave me the V700. Hell, they also gave me a gift card for 50 bucks since I had a new boat owners card. They actually took 10 percent of the credit price of the Sprint - which was about 50 dollars. Hats off to them, I still can't believe they did that.
Anyway, I'm happy that I went with the V700 because the Sprint 600 wouldn't have worked as I eluded to earlier. The Sprint 600 template has you using a jigsaw. The jigsaw would have contacted the lip so it wouldn't have worked. Luckily the 700 uses a 4.5" hole saw and a 2.5" hole saw so you can cut your hole without dealing with that lip.
Here's pics of the V700 hole and template:
^pic of the fiberglass fill in/existing plywood deck interface.
Everything else was pretty much verbatum from Al's writeup. The only other snags were finding the existing wiring at the DC panel. I could not find the wiring that was supposed to be sitting at or near the panel that runs to the front (8awg wire). I even resorted to calling FW to find it because I couldn't find it for the life of me. I ended up looking behind the top rocker switches above the ac panel and saw what was probably it there according to the gauge wire. I pulled on it and I could hear it slapping around in somewhere behind the aft port speaker. From there I got down in the midberth cabinets and went fishing with the wire snake. I eventually got it and fed it up to the speaker hole (removed speaker) and pushed it through the engine room firewall. Also, the 268 dc panel is already setup for a breaker for the
windlass while the 248 is not. So, I added some plywood down under the panel in the engine locker above the batteries. Sealed up the plywood with epoxy of course. I then bolted provided Lewmar fuse up right there. I can get some pics of that if needed. Wasn't a difficult job just time consuming especially the day I lost trying to find the dang wiring. Of course all the wires are exposed in the anchor locker to tie into. I love the
windlass and can't imagine being without it!
Be prepared, Al didn't say anything about needing a special rode - that was another $175 and the freakin contacter was nearly $200 bucks too! oh well it's totally worth it. Also check out the ebay knock off Delta polished anchor I got for like $125 shipped. Also got the chain stopper and swivel all from these guys:
http://www.marinepartdepot.com
They are dirt cheap and even negotiable! The anchor has not let me down yet and we frequently raft up and I'm the "anchor ship".
I'll put up some better pics of the
windlass hopefully later tonight or tommorow.