Self Tailing Winches

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Self Tailing Winches

During the annual boat lift and maintenance madness, the Bloke decided to give the winches a service. We have 4. In the process of reassembly there was a subtle difference in their finished outcome and I noticed that one was difficult to wind and with another, the sheets (ropes) weren't staying clamped in the self-tailing jaws, thus allowing the jib sheets to release when under load. Whoa! A couple of weeks of mutiny threats and frights too, when the jib sheets nearly got out of the winch, and this dangerous state of affairs needed to be addressed.

We discussed one morning whilst in our bunk, which is directly beneath the cockpit where the 4 winches are located, which of the winches needed adjusting. This proved to be a very disorienting conversation. I identified one as being fine and pointed upwards to where I believed it was located and said it was a port side winch. The bloke disagreed. 'Didn't I mean the starboard one?' and pointed somewhere else. The conversation then became like a map reading exercise except we were 'under' the map. There was some more hand waving and pointing which became less friendly. No matter, the Bloke would fix the winches by re-aligning the self-tailing feeder even if I didn't know which way was 'up'.... apparently!

Some on-line research followed, trying to determine the best alignment of the feeder and it is when we read just how very dangerous winches can be....think sailors who can't count to ten on their hands! Ouch. "Note to self - let's get this bit right". (http://www.oceannavigator.com/March-April-2011/Lewmar-issues-safety-warning-on-self-tailing-winches/)

Much to my dismay, by the time I'd gone topside to check on the Bloke's progress, the winch he'd so far 'fixed' was the very one that I had ineffectively identified as the only one that had been OK. Looks like we'll have to get a refresher ASAP in 'Communications 101'.