Anchor not working in Bavaria 38 Sport

[miguelsantacruz]

I have a Bavaria Sport Yacht 38.
The windlass just stopped working last weekend, out of the blues. The technician has advised that the windlass motor has been overloaded a lot and there is an automatic switch protector that disconnects.
I can not fin that switch on the boat.
Anybody has an idea where that might be?
thanks,

[Lazy Pelican]

On our B39 2006 there’s a large fuse, located near the battery charger which is replaceable. That was Bav standard at that time. Hunt around behind the cushion backs in the saloon.

[tckearney]

in my B42 the large fuse is stbd side just above and aft of the  batteries on the bulkhead.  If its not the fuse,   Have you tried shorting the control box for lifting and lowering.   Does the control unit click?  This is black &  behind the  main control panel. it has  some very large wires on it plus three small control wires.  If It clicks its most likely the main fuse.

  If not   The control wires are, one center (-)  plus the "up"  (on mine its left)  and "Down" (right)    you need to short + to either up or down and see if the control relay clicks.  If it then does,  you have a control cable fault.   Just touch a shorting wire on the contacts for a split second to hear the click. 

[Salty]

There was a time when the control wiring for the windlass used by Bavaria consisted of ordinary copper cabling. The copper corrodes in a salt laden atmosphere and will in time prevent The control signal from getting through to the solenoid. With no signal to the Solenoid, the windlass will not run. On my boat I found that the signal wires had corroded throughout the entire length of the cables, and had to renew them which is not an easy task as you have to be able to get behind the panelling.

A temporary alternative to renewing the signal wires would be to use a radio control system either from your windlass manufacturer (expensive) or from another marine supplier (almost as expensive), or to use a cheap eBay alternative such as a 12 volt winch radio control system. Many of these cheap radio control systems come with identical wiring attached to the radio receiver consisting of a grey wire with no terminal on the end which is the antenna, red and black wires which connect to your switched twelve volt supply for operating the windlass, and white and yellow wires which would connect to the + or positive directional control terminals on your windlass solenoid. On Bavaria sailboats that solenoid is encased in a black plastic lump behind your main switchboard panel. It has several terminals on top consisting of some large ones (leave them alone) and three smaller ones with thin wires attached. Two of these three smaller connections are the ones you are interested in, and both should be marked with a plus + sign. Taking the white and yellow wires from the radio control receiver, fit the white wire to one and the yellow to the other, and you are done. You can now control your windlass from anywhere within about 15 metres of the receiver.

It has been several years since I fitted this system to my boat, and in that time it has been totally reliable. The price of the radio control system has increased a little since then, but now you get two transmitters instead of one, and so that gives you the opportunity to be able to lose one of the transmitters 🤪

[Symphony]

The OP's boat is a 2014 motorboat and the electrics are very different from older boats. It will be fitted with a Lewmar windlass, not the Lofrans commonly fitted to  earlier boats. It is very similar to my 2015 cruiser and the electrical panel will probably be behind a bunk close to the main switch panel. Its location will be clearly shown in the owners manual and the fuse or circuit breaker for the windlass will be identified on the key to the fuse board.

As you suggested the older Lofrans installations are prone to blowing the circuit breaker or the control box contacts sticking, partly because of the poor wiring - I had similar problems with my 2001 37. However, no such problems so far on my new boat.  The remote you suggest can still be wired in if the OP wishes.