New manual windlass on my E32-3

[Bolo]

After many months spent considering windlass options I finally installed a Lofrans Royal Horizontal Manual windlass on the foredeck of my E32-3 this week. I will be posting a blog of the whole process soon but my first use of the windlass which was just deploying and retrieving the anchor and chain rode in the parking lot, because the boat is still on the hard, went well. The real test will be out on the water but all in all I’m pleased with how the installation went. More info and photos to come.

 

[jtsai]

Excellent! Looking forward to your blog post.

 

[Christian Williams]

Yes, if a manual works for you it's big news. I'll be interested in how fast retrieval is compared to electric, and whether you're all chain or chain and Nylon.

 

[Bolo]

Yes, if a manual works for you it's big news. I'll be interested in how fast retrieval is compared to electric, and whether you're all chain or chain and Nylon.

Christian, I'm not expecting to be as fast as an electric windlass. My testing "on the hard" showed about 10" to 12" of chain with each bow-to-stern movement of the lever. But for me I think that's OK because the use of an electric windlass always sort made me nervous even though I never used one before. Things seem to go so fast and, to me, things looked like they could get out of control in a hurry. When I raised then chain on my manual windlass and got to the point where the anchor was swinging right off the bow, getting it up into the roller with a few short, controlled pulls on the lever went very easily. Maybe I'm just a paranoid sailor. I can see a problem with being in a tight anchorage and a strong wind blowing where the boat could drift into another boat or a lee shore or shallow water.

There are many reasons that I went with a manual windlass, which I'll cover in the blog, but one of the best ones was that I noticed that a fair number of ocean cruising sailors use manual windlasses? Why? I suspect reliability is one of the reasons. A sailor I follow regularly on YouTube (Beside...ahem...Christian Williams, of course) is Kevin Boothby of How To Sail Oceans. He's probably one of the most accomplished sailors I've seen mostly because his boat has no auxiliary engine, aside from a small outboard that he sometimes uses to move short distances in a harbor. Before using the outboard he was using a sculling oar. He has a manual windlass on his boat and so I had a few email chats with him on the subject. Those conversations finalized my decision to got "manual".

I had to also purchase a new anchor rode with my windlass because the chain on the old rode wouldn't work with it. So I now have 45 feet of chain and then the rest is a rope road. This should be more than enough for the Chesapeake Bay, and according to Captian Boothby, I should find myself pulling most of the rope in by hand till I got to the chain and then use the manual windlass for the rest, which is what he does. I can eve use the capstan to haul the rope in too if the wind is up. Or, as I've done in the past when the wind was strong on the nose, motor around and up to where the anchor is laid and then while drifting back haul in the rode because it'll be slacked off. I did that before when sailing solo and the wind was blowing about 20 knots or more.

So, I'm fairly optimistic about a manual windlass working out for me and my 70 year old bones. Of course, nothing beats a real world experience which I intend to document with a video once I can get the boat back in the water and head out to an anchorage.

 

[windblown]

Christian, I'm not expecting to be as fast as an electric windlass. My testing "on the hard" showed about 10" to 12" of chain with each bow-to-stern movement of the lever. But for me I think that's OK because the use of an electric windlass always sort made me nervous even though I never used one before. Things seem to go so fast and, to me, things looked like they could get out of control in a hurry. When I raised then chain on my manual windlass and got to the point where the anchor was swinging right off the bow, getting it up into the roller with a few short, controlled pulls on the lever went very easily. Maybe I'm just a paranoid sailor. I can see a problem with being in a tight anchorage and a strong wind blowing where the boat could drift into another boat or a lee shore or shallow water.

There are many reasons that I went with a manual windlass, which I'll cover in the blog, but one of the best ones was that I noticed that a fair number of ocean cruising sailors use manual windlasses? Why? I suspect reliability is one of the reasons. A sailor I follow regularly on YouTube (Beside...ahem...Christian Williams, of course) is Kevin Boothby of How To Sail Oceans. He's probably one of the most accomplished sailors I've seen mostly because his boat has no auxiliary engine, aside from a small outboard that he sometimes uses to move short distances in a harbor. Before using the outboard he was using a sculling oar. He has a manual windlass on his boat and so I had a few email chats with him on the subject. Those conversations finalized my decision to got "manual".

I had to also purchase a new anchor rode with my windlass because the chain on the old rode wouldn't work with it. So I now have 45 feet of chain and then the rest is a rope road. This should be more than enough for the Chesapeake Bay, and according to Captian Boothby, I should find myself pulling most of the rope in by hand till I got to the chain and then use the manual windlass for the rest, which is what he does. I can eve use the capstan to haul the rope in too if the wind is up. Or, as I've done in the past when the wind was strong on the nose, motor around and up to where the anchor is laid and then while drifting back haul in the rode because it'll be slacked off. I did that before when sailing solo and the wind was blowing about 20 knots or more.

So, I'm fairly optimistic about a manual windlass working out for me and my 70 year old bones. Of course, nothing beats a real world experience which I intend to document with a video once I can get the boat back in the water and head out to an anchorage.

Looking forward to your blog, and to hearing how it goes. So far, we've only cruised from dock to dock, but we'd like to try out some anchorages. The thought of hauling in the anchor has been a factor.

 

[wayneking]

Christian, I'm not expecting to be as fast as an electric windlass. My testing "on the hard" showed about 10" to 12" of chain with each bow-to-stern movement of the lever. But for me I think that's OK because the use of an electric windlass always sort made me nervous even though I never used one before. Things seem to go so fast and, to me, things looked like they could get out of control in a hurry. When I raised then chain on my manual windlass and got to the point where the anchor was swinging right off the bow, getting it up into the roller with a few short, controlled pulls on the lever went very easily. Maybe I'm just a paranoid sailor. I can see a problem with being in a tight anchorage and a strong wind blowing where the boat could drift into another boat or a lee shore or shallow water.

There are many reasons that I went with a manual windlass, which I'll cover in the blog, but one of the best ones was that I noticed that a fair number of ocean cruising sailors use manual windlasses? Why? I suspect reliability is one of the reasons. A sailor I follow regularly on YouTube (Beside...ahem...Christian Williams, of course) is Kevin Boothby of How To Sail Oceans. He's probably one of the most accomplished sailors I've seen mostly because his boat has no auxiliary engine, aside from a small outboard that he sometimes uses to move short distances in a harbor. Before using the outboard he was using a sculling oar. He has a manual windlass on his boat and so I had a few email chats with him on the subject. Those conversations finalized my decision to got "manual".

I had to also purchase a new anchor rode with my windlass because the chain on the old rode wouldn't work with it. So I now have 45 feet of chain and then the rest is a rope road. This should be more than enough for the Chesapeake Bay, and according to Captian Boothby, I should find myself pulling most of the rope in by hand till I got to the chain and then use the manual windlass for the rest, which is what he does. I can eve use the capstan to haul the rope in too if the wind is up. Or, as I've done in the past when the wind was strong on the nose, motor around and up to where the anchor is laid and then while drifting back haul in the rode because it'll be slacked off. I did that before when sailing solo and the wind was blowing about 20 knots or more.

So, I'm fairly optimistic about a manual windlass working out for me and my 70 year old bones. Of course, nothing beats a real world experience which I intend to document with a video once I can get the boat back in the water and head out to an anchorage.

I'm also looking forward to more info since this is exactly what I've been contemplating on my 38-200. Your locker looks just like mine so I'm interested in how easily the chain slips back into the locker when raising the anchor. My big question has always been how well I could get a windass to work without rebuilding the anchor locker to allow for sufficient vertical fall of the chain. Maybe the slower retrieval of a manual windlass solves that problem?

 

[Joliba]

I too am interested. For the few times that I anchor most seasons, I have pulled the rode up by hand. But in 30 feet of water, all that chain plus the anchor require me to sit down on the foredeck and serioulsly put my back into it. As wonderful as it would be, I could never justify the time and expense necessary to install an electric windlass and modified chain locker/foredeck. This may be the compromise I need.
Mike Jacker

 

[Bolo]

Joliba & wayneking:

Like I wrote before, my tests with the Lofrans Royal windlass in the parking lot were very encouraging. Yes, it's definitely going to be a slower retrieval then an electric windlass, that goes without saying, but that compromise isn't going to be a big deal, I think, because I've seen plenty of world sailing cruisers using a manual windlass on their boats so I can only assume that it works well for them. The biggest problem, if you want to call it that, is when the chain leaves the gypsy, sometimes called a "wildcat" (I like that name better), and falls onto the deck where it can pile up, but as one world sailing cruiser told me, "just kick it into the locker as it comes out." I did just that during my parking lot test and found that very quickly gravity takes over in the locker and the chain is pulled down in as it comes off the "wildcat". As it does it goes CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! over the edge of the locker opening. To help the chain along I'm going to first cover the back edge of the locker opening with a trimmed piece of "WearAndTearPads" that I found awhile back on SailboatOwners.com that I used to prevent the chafing I was getting in the cockpit from the jib sheets. I think that this will protect the gel coat at the edge of the locker. Then, on the aft locker wall, I'm going to install a Lewmar Small Fairlead Anchor roller mounted on a 2" block of teak that will also help in getting the chain over the edge of the locker and more into the center. I've laid it out on paper and it looks like a good solution.


First test of the manual windlass (in the parking lot) where I could see the chain dropping
by itself int the lock but riding over the edge.

The weather here has turned cold again but my boat is scheduled to launch on or around April 1st. Then I'll be able to get aboard and add the modifications I stated above. Soon after that it'll be a trip out to an anchoring area where I'll video tape that action.

 

[Richie 32-3]

Yes, if a manual works for you it's big news. I'll be interested in how fast retrieval is compared to electric, and whether you're all chain or chain and Nylon.

Looking forward to the blog also would love to see that in action, good luck