Tag Archives: lewmar

Rebuilding the Windlass

Our windlass is a vital part of our boat as it controls our anchor and anchor chain.  It allows us to use the motor to raise and lower our 100 meters of 10mm stainless chain and 33 kilo spade anchor.  We replaced the motor, gaskets and a few other small pieces in Costa Rica 2019, but we have not taken the top portion of the windlass apart for some time.

We were having issues with the windlass as it was drawing too much power to operate.  Something was causing friction or issues making the motor work too hard which then overloaded the batteries.  Never a good thing to have the boat shut down as you are trying to bring up the anchor.

Getting Started

In order to work on the windlass we have to disengage the anchor chain.  However, we did not want it to drop into the marina water so we ended up securing the anchor and chain to the bow roller.

We ordered new gaskets, o-rings, a sure clip, and a bearing from Lewmar (which took forever to arrive).  As Matt was taking everything apart he realized that the spacer had rotted.  Well shoot!  For some reason, Lewmar has stainless and aluminum pieces put together which is odd as these two materials don’t like each other.  

End of Year Delay

New problem. This spacer was not available anywhere in NZ, USA, or Europe!  Evidently Lewmar would not be manufacturing more of these pieces until end February (it was December when we discovered the problem).  If we were to wait, the part would not get to us until April or May. That would mean that we could not leave the marina as we would have no means to anchor which was simply unacceptable.  So, we decided to take it to RH Precision Engineering to have a new one fabricated.

Rob at RH Precision was wonderful!  We dropped the sad little spacer off on Friday before Christmas and he called us on Wednesday 28 Dec to tell us it was ready!  And on top of that he only charged us $100NZD and 2 beers!  We would have spent hundreds of dollars more had we ordered it from Lewmar.  And it is beautiful and works perfectly!

We discovered the culprit was a rotted cord deck which held the spacer.  Sea water had seeped into the wood, rotted it out and kept the spacer wet.  So, Matt had to dig out all of the rotted wood, let it dry out, then filled it with epoxy.

We were finally able to complete the windlass project after 3 weeks, mostly waiting on parts.  Now, we should be able to anchor without putting too much stress on our batteries.

Events from this blog occurred in late December and early January 2023.  Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events. We upgrade Sugar Shack with lithium batteries and Starlink in our last blog.

Wash down pump replacement

Servicing our Girl: Sugar Shack

What do you do on a beautiful day in paradise?  Get dirty?  We had a few boat projects that needed to be completed in calm weather (no wind and no swell).  So, we set out to do some maintenance and servicing of both Sugar Shack and Sweetie (our dinghy). 

Anchored in calm waters with very little breeze made it much easier to accomplish these specific projects.  We dropped the hook at North Totegegie where we had beautiful views. 

Servicing the Boat in Paradise

Servicing the Boat in Paradise

Windlass Service

What is a windlass?  It is an electric wench that raises and lowers our anchor and anchor chain. It is a very important part of our boat as it would make anchoring nearly impossible without it.  In a pinch, we can manually raise and lower our anchor using the hand crank method.  However, we have 100 meters of 10mm stainless steel chain attached to a Spade x140 anchor that weighs in at over 65lbs.  Imagine cranking all that chain and anchor up by hand – no thank you!

Our Lewmar Ocean 3 windlass (2000 watt) was running a little slow when raising the chain.  Once it got going it was fine, but the startup was less than optimal.  Not a problem, just needed a little love.  We are at anchor with our anchor chain connected to the windlass.  Can’t rightly service the windlass without removing the anchor chain, right?  First things first, Matt ties a line to the last link of chain (just at the rode) and then secures it to the anchor roller so he could remove the pressure off the windlass.  Then he jumped in the hole (locker) and cleaned the brushes and removed the corrosion.

Servicing the Windlass

Servicing the Windlass

Not yet at 100%…it might require a more comprehensive servicing in a month or two.  For now, it is better than it was and that is good for us (maybe at 95%).  A few days later, Matt took the windlass apart and cleaned all the connections.  He found a loose wire that was the culprit and now the windlass is running perfectly!

Tail Tails

Do you know what a tail tail is?  It doesn’t have anything to do with your posterior or an animal.  A tail tail on a boat is an indicator of how your sails are trimmed while underway.  They are small, light pieces of fabric attached to the sail.  When the sail is trimmed correctly, the tail tails on the windward (inside) and leeward (outside) of the sail will stream backwards.  That’s when life is good.  If the sail needs trimming the tail tail will either fly up or down indicating the need to tighten or loosen the jib sheet (working line) to give you optimal performance.

Our tail tails were very sad and in need of servicing.  Easy enough job when there is no wind.  Matt had to drop the sail onto the deck in order reach all the tail tails.  You don’t want to do this in windy conditions as your jib will be flopping all over the place.  We bought a kit which made replacing them super easy.

Washdown Pump

Our Jabsco washdown pump is located in a locker near the mast.  This pump provides pressure to our hose to enable us to wash down the boat, the anchor chain and pretty much anything we need.  It is great because we can use it with salt water or fresh water depending on how the valve is turned.  We usually hose things off first with salt water, then do a final rinse with fresh water.  Why is that?  Because we have an abundance of salt water and a very limited amount of fresh water.  Our pump was very corroded as it is in and around salt water and salty air.  It worked, but it was limping along.  Instead of ‘servicing’ we decided to replace her.

The pump is only attached with a few screws and clamps.  Matt had it replaced in under an hour.

Wash down pump replacement

Wash down pump replacement

Servicing Sweetie – Our Dinghy

I had intended on putting the work done to service Sweetie on this blog, but it was so extensive that I ended up giving it her own blog post.  Stay tuned for “Dinghy Spa for Sweetie.”

Events from this blog post occurred during the month of January 2021.  Our blog posts run 8 weeks behind our adventures.