Rear Winches - Bavaria 36 (2003)

[Bill_Giles]

Getting on a bit I have often difficulty hauling in the genoa furler when it is breezy. I have obtained a couple of small Lewmar winches, one of which is intended for mounting on the port side of the cockpit combing, where there is an obvious mounting point aft of the main winch. Has anyone mounted winches there themselves? I have seen pictures of winches there. Are there ready made bolt holes or does one drill and tap ones own?

I am aware of the dangers of winching too hard on the furler!

[patprice]

I believe there is an aluminium plate in there that will need tapping.
Someone confirm?

[tiger79]

My understanding is that there's a plate glassed in under the winch mounting position.  You'd need to drill and tap to take the winch bolts (and use Duralac!).

[Salty]

I believe there is an aluminium plate in there that will need tapping.
Someone confirm?

Confirmed, and definitely coat the bolt threads with Duralac or after a short time you won't be able to undo the bolts.
If the furling line runs tight so that you have to use a winch, then it sounds like you have got a halyard wrap. This can be cured by hoisting your Genoa as high as it will go. By that I mean not just as far as the shackled on tack will allow. Instead hoist the sail all the way up, and if the tack is now too far from the securing point, then secure it in place using several turns of a smaller line through the tack and down to the securing point near to the lower end of the forestay. That will stop the halyard wrap from occurring around the top end of the forestay, and life will become simple and easy again.

[Stockie]

Following on from the previous post, re halyard wrap!
Is this the trick to stop the Spinaker halyard from getting
Caught on the top of the furler??i was wondering why
The halyard sheave was so close to the top of the Genoa
Sheave?
Cheers Richard

[Symphony]

Rather than fit a winch, why not improve the existing line handling by fitting good quality blocks and a ratchet block at the aft end. I did this last year using Harken gear. Not cheap (but less than a winch!) and dramatically improved furling with far less effort.

[Salty]

Following on from the previous post, re halyard wrap!
Is this the trick to stop the Spinaker halyard from getting
Caught on the top of the furler??i was wondering why
The halyard sheave was so close to the top of the Genoa
Sheave?
Cheers Richard

No, it's the trick to stop the Genoa halyard from wrapping around the forestay while furling the Genoa, and thereby making furling more difficult even to the point where it becomes impossible to furl. The trick is to keep the angle between the forestay and the Genoa halyard as large as possible.

[Konan the Bavarian]

Can I also add my two bobs worth - try spraying the internals of the furler with silicon spray. I had a similar problem - the furler was tight to furl, so I blasted the furler with silicon spray, and now nice and easy to furl by hand. Even my wife can hand furl the genoa.
I presume the furler received little preventative maintenance in the 8 years prior to my ownership, so this becomes part of my routine maintenance schedule.

With regard to adding additional winches, I move he original ST40s to the rear mounting positions on my B37CR, and installed ST50s as the primary winches. There are alloy backing plates under the mounting pads, that I drilled & tapped to secure the winch base plates. And yes definitely use a lanolin or silicon grease to isolate the stainless steel bolts from the aluminium.

Tip for removing stainless mounting bolts from mounting plates: use a battery powered impact driver, with correct fitting drive head. I use an 18V makita impact driver, and it works every time to remove previously "impossible to remove" screws & bolts.

Steven
Konan the Bavarian