Winch Maintenance

This blog states that I last serviced Pachuca's winches in early March 2012, which would have been in Mar del Plata, Argentina.  This confirms my not having a recollection of servicing the winches since my return to Australia in April 2013, but I had my doubts about that when I saw the surprisingly good state of the winches.  The cabin and jib winches were remarkably clean and lubricated, although the spinnaker winches were starting to show a need for servicing. 

Work Area with mattress protector on rail to prevent losing parts overboard

Gears and base ready for cleaning

Winch disassembled, clean, ready for lubrication

The task went well, although I am still very slow at that work.  Breaking down the large winches takes less than 20 minutes, but cleaning and lubricating with lanolin grease each component takes me about two hours of careful and methodical effort.  And the final assembly can cause a few headaches.

The upshot is that as always it took me two days to service the four large winches (Maxwell 28ST) and half a day to service the smaller and simpler cabin top winches (Maxwell 22ST). 

On our last sail the port jib winch jumped a gear with a loud clank when I loaded it up as much as I could with both arms.  It returned to normal when the heavy load was reduced.  So I performed maintenance on it with a careful eye for anything that could explain the gear jump as I cleaned and lubricated each component.  All the bearings were intact, with no cracks in the races.  All the gears were as new.  Maxwell winches use clutches, which I consider to be far superior to pawls, and they seemed OK too. 

I found two possibilities of the cause, which I consider remote.  There was a gear that I had noticed earlier with the walls of two cutouts for the clutch looking very thin.  However, it appeared to me that this how they had been machined and I could not see how this could cause the gear jump problem. The metal showed no indication of bending or fracturing. The second possibility appeared downright startling at first: a vertical hairline crack down the side of the cast alloy housing.  But closer inspection showed that the crack did not go all of the way through the housing, and it matched a small seam on the other side of the housing.  It appeared to me that the housing was composed of two halves that had been joined together by what must have been exquisite welding.  The crack I saw appeared to be superficial with no likely movement, and certainly none evident.

I swapped the suspect gear with the one on the port spinnaker winch.  If that does not correct the problem I will replace both clutches with spare new ones (which I should have done when I had the chance).  With no cleaning and lubricating required I should be able to do the clutch swap in well under an hour.  If that fails I will contact the Australian Yacht Winch Company (which has been brilliant about providing spares in the past) for advice.  Failing all that I'll make a swap with the spinnaker winch which is very infrequently used - a workaround that I am reluctant to take because I want everything on the boat to work correctly, with no hidden traps.

Suspect Gear

Hairline crack on housing

Clutch and springs