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Winch Strip Down, Re-Grease and Assemble
sailboat2adventure @ Mon May 05 13:30:00 +0100 2008
Winch Maintenance – Stripping and Re-greasing
Just returned from a few days sailing on the yacht of a good friend of mine. First day out we noticed that one of the main winches was a tad stiff and revolving none too smoothly.
We decided to strip it down, clean it, re-grease and re-assemble it. This sounds a daunting task if you have never done it before, but in fact it is really quite simple and any sailor can do it easily with the few simple tools required and a little patience and care. It is a good exercise and one that should be included in your general maintenance programme from time to time.
Take a look at the illustration and you can see what you need. Some winch manufacturers supply a key for unlocking the top inner ring, but in the absence of that, Allen keys, a hammer(hard rubber preferred), brush, tube of winch grease, rags and a bucket with a goodly depth of diesel fuel in it. I prefer to use diesel as it is readily available(from your tank if you are in a far away place), but kerosene is ok too.
Insert the key in one of the holes in the top plate and tap it anti clockwise until it revolves. Once freed it should undo four to six revolutions quite freely. Always be super careful as you lift it off so that if it slips or falls, it drops inboard not outboard.
Gently prise off the main cover – usually done by standing astride the winch, one foot in the cockpit and the other on the deck and working it upward until it comes free. If it hasn’t been off for sometime and dry inside, it could take some effort to move it and then come suddenly. Once again ensure that you have some ready hands outboard in case a loose part pops out unexpectedly. Remove the self tailing piece as you go and place in the bucket.
Take a Allen key the right size and undo the three or four screws at the base of the gears unit. From here you take each piece(cogs and spindles) and place them into the bucket as you go, noting carefully the order in which they come apart. Be careful not to dislodge the pawls and springs as they tend to fly away in directions you would rather they didn’t!
Wash all parts thoroughly in the diesel with your brush and then wipe clean with the rag. Lay them out in order on your cockpit seat as shown.
Wipe a thin coating of the grease on spindles, inner surfaces and flat surface of the base. Grease the bearing races well and ensure they run well. Dob liberally into and onto gears and cogs. It is good to have them well coated but don’t overdo it – too much grease and the surplus tends to dry out and go hard over time.
Re-assemble taking care that every part goes in in the correct order and fits properly. Check that you have not left any stray bits in the bottom of the bucket.
Refit the top ring, polish with your rag and you will have a shiny new winch again.
Spin it a couple of times and you will hear the satisfying way it revolves freely with the muted clicking of a newly greased winch – you will be most pleased with yourself.
Allow yourself a couple of hours for the first winch – after that it will be cinch.
We carried out this operation and the winch sounded so good that we stripped down all the others on the boat the following day – great fun.
You can read more about daily maintenance when you are passagemaking in my ebook ‘Voyage of the Little Ship ‘Tere Moana’ on my websitehttp://www.sailboat2adventure.com/
They All Laughed When I Said I was Going to Sail Away to Adventure - A Year Later They All Wanted to Come
sailboat2adventure @ Sat May 03 12:58:00 +0100 2008
SAILAWAY TO ADVENTURE
Have you ever dreamt about sailing away to adventure in your own sailboat? and exploring the oceans of this beautiful planet of ours? The excitement, the freedom, the sheer joy of sailing and visiting the myriad exotic places along the way? Hawaii, The Caribbean, San Blas Islands, South America, The Galapagos, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia, Tonga and on to New Zealand and Australia. These are but a few and the list is endless.
Can you feel the excitement, following the months of planning, of finally setting off on your first passage? The exultation of leaving port for the first time, on the first leg of your adventure of a lifetime? Believe me it is a wonderful feeling setting off, knowing that you have months ahead of you to sail the oceans with absolutely no restrictions, free to sail where your fancy takes you. And, as you leave behind you all those limitations of land living – work, the day to day affairs, traffic congestion, city living, pollution and more – a weight will lift away from you and it will be replaced, slowly at first, by a growing and wonderful sense of freedom. As you take in the first drafts of fresh sea air deep into your lungs, filling them to the bottom, you will come to realise there is no substitute in this world for it.
If this is your dream, or you are already planning your adventure, or you are already doing it, then you will gain benefit from my ‘101Dollar Saving Tips for Sailors’. Most of us are on a budget and would like to save where we can. My ‘101 Dollar Saving Tips for Sailors’ could save you hundreds or perhaps even thousands of dollars during the duration of your voyage. Most of the ‘Tips’ are things you would never think of before setting sail and are gathered together from my own experiences during my four year sailing odyssey sailing ‘The Dream’ and visiting the destinations mentioned above.
I have two reasons for encouraging you to begin planning your odyssey, and the first is that so many folks spend their life dreaming about it, but for a whole host of reasons never get around to beginning. This is very sad – to miss out on one of the most fantastic experiences one could hope for just because they cannot over that first hurdle. My job is to help you get over that hurdle.
Secondly, and this is tied into Global Warming and Climate Change. There may come a time in the future when a trip like this may much more restricted. We do not have much control over this in the short term, but we do know that right now we can set off knowing that the weather is still our friend, and we are able to visit all of these wonderful destinations.
So now is the time to begin, and start your planning – remember the great Nike tag line ‘Do It Now’, don’t put it off – you will never egret beginning and then you will wonder why you never started sooner.
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