anchor locker to accommodate an 8 inch bronze deck plate? I had the same problem on my last two boats. In fact, I had two problems with the windless set up. One was that the hole below the gipsy through the deck was to small and I had to stuff the line in which took a lot of time and was a real PITA. The second was that the chain piled up against the hull, built up a pile and jammed the windless from below. I would have to leave the deck and go below to push the pile over so I could continue to retrieve the anchor. On several occasions I had to do this a couple of times. You can imagine what a problem that would create in a crowded anchorage. I solved the problem on both boats by installing an 8 in, o-ring sealed bronze deck plate right above the anchor locker. Now prior to retrieving the anchor I just use my deck fitting tool and open the plate. As the line comes in I just reach through the hole and grab the line and pull at the same rate as the windless stuffing it flat as I go. When I get to the chain and it starts to pile up threatening to jam the windless, I just push the pile over. After the anchor is up, I reinstall the deck plate and I just saved myself a pile of trouble. It works! Think about it if you have the room. My deck had a slight camber to it but that was easily taken care of with a bit of thickened epoxy on installation. I put some mold release on the deck plate prior to installing it temporally and after the epoxy set up I removed it and installed it with caulking. You cant even see any of that after final installation. You might not even need to do that. I didn't on my first boat. I would suggest that you could not use a plastic deck plate because of the possibility of the threads jamming if you have any deck camber at all. Also the plastic threads would get buggered up as you drag chain up through as you might need to once in a while. This was one of my projects that in terms of success, I would have to rate it as a 10.