Are Barton Winch handles different size to Lewmar ones?

[john_morris_uk]

Sailing our daughter's Pandora for the first time over the weekend. The Barton winch handles fit the unnamed winches for the halyards on the coach roof perfectly, but they don't fit at all well into the tiny Lewmar winches on the coamings for the Genoa sheets. They barely fit in and don't go in very far and jamb into the winch if you're not careful. I've never come across this before, but I have heard of different winch handle 'star' sizes. Does she need to get some Lewmar handles as well as the two Barton handles she's got? (I know they're Barton as it says so on the handle - although the winches on the coach roof itself are nameless.)

The winches are tiny and have no gears, just pawls and the mechanical advantage is from the different diameter of drum versus handle length.

 

[duncan99210]

If the winches haven’t been used for some time, there may well be some bits of corrosion in the handle socket, hence the difficulty in getting the handles to fit. Try easing the star shaped socket with a file: that should do the job without the need to scratch round for another handle. Alternatively, resize one of the Barton handles slightly with a file to produce the same end result.

 

[Daydream believer]

My old Barton does not fit my Harken very well, so I would guess that barton ones are slightly different to the norm

 

[john_morris_uk]

My old Barton does not fit my Harken very well, so I would guess that barton ones are slightly different to the norm

That would make sense. I don’t see any sign of corrosion.

 

[DinghyMan]

From what I remember there are two "standard" sizes: 5/8" and 11/16"
And just to make it worse there are multiple lengths as well which aren't interchangeable
I've got some diagrams somewhere of the variations

 

[pvb]

From what I remember there are two "standard" sizes: 5/8" and 11/16"

Yes, there were two sizes, but virtually everything in the last 50 years has used the international standard 11/16" size.

 

[john_morris_uk]

The boat was built circa 1991 so that’s confused me. Did they use old winches or has someone changed or added them I wonder?