Just bought a lovely Cruiser 30 but still getting my head around the Bavaria way of doing things. Right now struggling to operate the anchor winch. ‘Anchor’ switch is on and symbol illuminated at the distribution board, remote correctly plugged in at anchor well, engine running………. Nothing from the winch.
……grateful for any tips!
There was a time when Bavaria used ordinary copper wiring for the circuitry onboard. Copper wiring does not last well in a salt laden atmosphere and having suffered the same problem myself on a Bav 36(2002) back in 2011, its odds on that your boat wiring is suffering from the same problem.
At the time I took out the old copper signal wiring for the remote, all the way from the plug in point in the chain locker back to the windlass solenoid located within the wiring jungle behind the switch board. I cut open the old wire and found that the copper cores were totally corroded all the way from forward to the solenoid. So I purchased a suitable length of new tinned copper cabling and replaced the entire length of signal wire and that solved the problem. It is quite a long and difficult job as the wiring is located behind all of the cupboards, but you can use the old wire to pull the new wire through.
Since then I learned a much simpler and newer trick which was to buy, from Ebay for example, a cheap radio controlled device used for remotely operating a 12 volt electric winch of the type that you might see fitted on a truck or SUV road vehicle. At the time the radio control device cost around £10 in the UK, but are now a little more expensive. Made in China, and possibly elsewhere, and it will operate your windlass from pretty much anywhere onboard that is within 50 feet of the receiver which you have to wire directly to the windlass solenoid.
If you do a search within this forum you will see several instances where this kind of radio control system has been used, and not only for operating the windlass. On the home page there is a search facility in the top right corner of the page, enter your search word, and a whole world of Bavaria yacht information comes up, but remember to do the search from the home page, or all you will get is a search of your latest reply to your search. So looking at the home page, I typed in “Radio control” but without the parenthesis, and then selected the search button and up came all the answers. The second listing was my original posting on this subject going back several years ago and which I dont want to have to type out all over again.
p.s. you might look down your nose at using a cheap radio controller bought from ebay, and instead look at buying a much much more expensive system as manufactured by one of the yachtie windlass manufacturers. Thats your choice, but with respect to those manufacturers and your pocket, they probably both work as well as each other and with the change from buying a cheaper controller you can buy a second to salve your conscience and keep as a spare, and a few more tinnies to stock up the fridge !!
