If I had a Hammer
Last week, Justin wrote praising me in my efforts to tackle the winches. What he didn’t know was that I was saving the oldest and most complicated ones for last. This meant that I had to recruit him and others to help complete the job. The last and final winch had 2 seized screws. We called on our friend Blake who recommended an impact screwdriver and hammer. He was appalled when we replied that we had to go and buy both. (In our defense, we had a hammer, it just rusted in our tool box during Hurricane Harvey and we never replaced it. We hadn’t really needed one and only things that we use are allowed on the boat.) Even with our new tools and having being shamed for not owning a hammer, Justin finally had to result to using his dremel to remove the last screw head and then had to file down the replacement screw head to allow it to fit back into the base. With all this extra work, I was thinking of other uses for the hammer and already replacing the winch in my mind. Ultimately, like most boat jobs, it took twice as long and required at least 2 trips to Home Depot or West Marine/Blackburn Marine.
Our boat was built in 1985, making her 35 years old. There are 2 winches in the cockpit that appear to be at least 25 years old or older. One of which, I couldn’t find any record of or a maintenance manual online. Since none of the manuals completely match the winches currently on the boat anyway, I was having to figure things out as I took the things apart. A salty sailor on his How-To YouTube video suggested taking pictures at every step and that was the best advice I got. There were multiple times that I had to refer back to the pictures to see what piece goes where. Another YouTuber recommended purchasing dental hygienist tools to help you clean and scrape in small spaces. I didn’t follow this recommendation but I could see how it would have been helpful. Our friend Blake recommended the use of Tef Loc anti-seize for most if not all projects to allow ease of removing screws, bolts, etc in the future. And the final advice that I did follow was from our friend Jeremy who recommended that we use a real degreaser, and not just use our environmentally friendly dish soap (which says it works on grease) or Simple Green. It really cut through the thick and nasty stuff and cut the job time in half, if not more.
There are quite a few other lessons that were learned after my 2 weeks with the winches. Like with any boat project, it will take way longer to do any boat maintenance than expected. People on the internet say that it should take at least 1-2 hours per winch and this was not my experience, especially on the older ones that were loaded with sticky grease. Also, don’t be afraid to get dirty. Though I wore gloves as much as possible, there were times when things needed a more delicate touch. You will also need a lot of towels to catch the degreaser and keep the new/old grease from getting around the boat. I did end up using the Simple Green to clean the cockpit out to make sure that there weren’t any slick spots the next time we go sailing. And lastly, make sure that you have a variety of tools handy. In the end, I used a phillips and flat head screw driver, an allen wrench, an impact screwdriver, hammer, dremel, pick, small brush, bowl and bucket plus degreaser, grease, oil, tef loc, towels and gloves.
The recommendation for servicing your winches is once a year for cruisers. Since it looked like the winches had not been serviced in some time and maybe only serviced when they were originally installed, it should, in theory, go much easier next time. My plan is to service them again in late winter/early spring to see how things are working now that we have a good baseline. Since everything is currently working and can handle our current setup, we are not going to make any changes just yet. We have plans to adjust our line setup and upgrades will need to be made to allow for more ease of operation as we continue to prep the boat for other harbors. For now, I’m thankful that I am getting to write this blog post having completed the task and but mostly thankful for being back in the comfort of the AC!
This is our current setup, if you’re curious: Winch Spreadsheet
