Self-tailing winches. Luxury? Necessity? Answers might vary. Since the majority of my sailing will likely be single-handing in the future, I decided it was time for an upgrade to the standard Lewmar 16 2-speed winches that seem to be the default from the factory. Priced new, they're out of my current budget. However, if I could find some used...
I found some candidates from a guy in Maryland who salvages 70-80s sailboats. Despite the title, I did actually buy 3 winches. I bought one 16ST single-speed to put on the cabin top for minding the mainsail sheet. I bought 2x 30ST 2-speeds for my jib sheet winches. I plan to reuse my Lewmar 6 for tightening up reef lines and the jib halyard.
My boxes arrived and I could that these had not been cared for as expected. A teardown showed them to be pretty gunked up.
As I disassembled further, I found lots of caked-on grease.
I didn't take pictures of the boring middle part. But after soaks (and a toothbrush scrubs) in Simple Green, Purple Power, and finally paint thinner, I gave them a bath in dish soap to rinse off all of my degreaser residue. I then took my Dremel to them with a small sanding buff (well, about 30 sanding buffs) and sanded the remaining crud off of all the metal.
A little grease, a little oil, and some replacement pawl springs, and they're looking ready to be installed.
Here they are fully-assembled along with my cleaned up 6 that I will be re-installing. I put new screws in them as some of the old ones were stripped out.
Next step is to get them installed!
I found some candidates from a guy in Maryland who salvages 70-80s sailboats. Despite the title, I did actually buy 3 winches. I bought one 16ST single-speed to put on the cabin top for minding the mainsail sheet. I bought 2x 30ST 2-speeds for my jib sheet winches. I plan to reuse my Lewmar 6 for tightening up reef lines and the jib halyard.
My boxes arrived and I could that these had not been cared for as expected. A teardown showed them to be pretty gunked up.
As I disassembled further, I found lots of caked-on grease.
I didn't take pictures of the boring middle part. But after soaks (and a toothbrush scrubs) in Simple Green, Purple Power, and finally paint thinner, I gave them a bath in dish soap to rinse off all of my degreaser residue. I then took my Dremel to them with a small sanding buff (well, about 30 sanding buffs) and sanded the remaining crud off of all the metal.
A little grease, a little oil, and some replacement pawl springs, and they're looking ready to be installed.
Here they are fully-assembled along with my cleaned up 6 that I will be re-installing. I put new screws in them as some of the old ones were stripped out.
Next step is to get them installed!
