New Windlass - which one!

Thanks for that picture AndrewB.

The Lofrans installation instructions for my new windlass do show that you must install it so that the below deck motor is not in the same compartment as the anchor chain. I can clearly see why now. I shall have to think of some way to do this... I'm sure the other half won't miss that nice tupperware box which appears to be just the right size, a bit of rubber gasket and some self tapping screws with a little extra silicone sealant, jobs a good 'un! Sometimes Blue Peter would be proud of me.

Thanks for the incentive not to cut installation corners.
 
Most of the stuff regarding installation etc has been covered already, so I won't repeat it. Instead I'll give a recommendation for the Loffrans Cayman Windlass. Mine's 15 years old now and has been in my ownership for the last 10 on my Beneteau First 35. Absolutely fantastic bit of kit, never had a problem. As well as the two foot switches on the fordeck, I've fitted another switch on the pedestal in the cockpit. Dead handy when single handed.

MICEXT89.jpg
 
Anchor winch

Well lets pitch in for the underdog, then!

We have a Lewmar horizontal 1200W winch on our 12.45m boat. It has operated without fault through 6 seasons. Built to mount on deck, it still looks new. Rope drum as well as chain/rope gypsy, with manual override, and free fall if you want to do that. Use it with 75m of 10mm chain and a 25kg Rocna (which incidentally always digs the dirt up).

Whatever you get, remember if you are anchoring in relatively deep water, you need to be able to lift the anchor, chain, and anything from mud, to rock or old anchors that you might find on the bottom. Get it plenty strong enough. If you drag off, then you may find yourself rapidly in deep water with all your scope hanging vertically below you.

We have just fitted a Lewmar remote control, a bit like a car key fob, which operates by wireless. A little disappointing on range, but invaluable for being able to operate comfortably while watching what you are doing.

I would go for a local heavy duty battery in parallel with your service batteries. It does not need massive wiring to charge it: the duty cycle is so low that it will barely ever be less anything but fully charged. Protect the cable with a suitable fuse. We however have the original Dehler arrangement of heavy cable from the batteries to the bow, with a waterproof breaker at the bow.
 
AndrewB said:
When I tried to claim under guarantee, Lewmar dismissed me .... on the grounds that the windlass had been installed in a damp anchor locker!!

The windlass was yard installed following Lewmar's installation instructions to the letter, which make no mention that the unit is not waterproof, nor any advice on what should be done about this.
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Hi Andrew, good to hear from you and read your/Lin's articles in YM

My Maxwell windlass has the same construction, i.e. aluminium body with a carbon steel motor casing. I have painted it and greased it to overcome corrosion, with limited success. Last season I wrapped it with Denso tape, a superb product for this type of application, which seems to have been totally successful. It's sticky and not nice to handle, so I wrapped it in polythene and tape.
 
syfuga said:
I would go for a local heavy duty battery in parallel with your service batteries. It does not need massive wiring to charge it: the duty cycle is so low that it will barely ever be less anything but fully charged. Protect the cable with a suitable fuse. We however have the original Dehler arrangement of heavy cable from the batteries to the bow, with a waterproof breaker at the bow.
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If you mean by 'heavy duty battery in parallel with your service batteries' a battery up in the bow closer to the windlass then it will still need very heavy duty cabling. For the average boat a run of cable up to the bow and back to the earth would be long enough to suffer very bad voltage drop. Even just a 55amp alternator would require 50mm cable so most people would be better just running from their current domestic bank.
The location of your breaker in the bow is incorrect unless the batteries are up there as well. Any fuse should be located close to the battery. That way if the long cable between the battery and the circuit breaker shorts out it will be protected, with the breaker up in the bow the cable will stay live and bang there goes your batteries! If you have another fuse/breaker in line close to the battery bank then just ignore everything that I have just written!

A note on cockpit switches, avoid the manufacturers own ones. Lofrans wanted something in the order of £18 pounds for theirs, but Maplins have the same for £4 but without the Lofrans labelled back plate. The same goes for circuit breakers. Lofrans wanted £150 (I seem to recall) but a 100amp circuit breaker is available for £7-£12 elsewhere. They are used on car stereo's (yes very loud ones). It's that 'Marine' label thing again.
 
Cable size

To avoid having to use very large cables from the battery bank to the windlass you can have a battery close to the windlass connected to the main bank by a 12v to 12v battery charger, than you can use cheap small section cable.
 
Fat Freddie said:
To avoid having to use very large cables from the battery bank to the windlass you can have a battery close to the windlass connected to the main bank by a 12v to 12v battery charger, than you can use cheap small section cable.
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12v to 12v battery charger. Surely your winding us up?

I've heard of 12v chargers to charge small batteries up to a maximum of 10 amp/hours but your idea sounds a bit too much like perpetual motion!

Have you got a link to the piece of kit you describe?
 
We have a Stirling DC to DC Battery charger in the bow together with a dedicated windlass battery. IIRC, the charger limits current draw to approx 70A so we did not need to change the old, slightly undersized, cable from the engine (not house) alternator. The charging circuit has a voltage sensor so that full output goes initially to the starter battery and only charges the windlass battery when fully charged. Circuit protection at both ends. No where nearly as expensive as running a 'proper' sized cable.

Just installed a 1400W Quick Windlass to replace a very knackered Lofrans - so far works well & has a manual chain release as well as built in chain counter.
 
Moscowman100 said:
We have a Stirling DC to DC Battery charger in the bow together with a dedicated windlass battery. IIRC, the charger limits current draw to approx 70A so we did not need to change the old, slightly undersized, cable from the engine (not house) alternator. The charging circuit has a voltage sensor so that full output goes initially to the starter battery and only charges the windlass battery when fully charged. Circuit protection at both ends. No where nearly as expensive as running a 'proper' sized cable.

Just installed a 1400W Quick Windlass to replace a very knackered Lofrans - so far works well & has a manual chain release as well as built in chain counter.
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Well you live and learn. I never knew that product existed.

I have to disagree with you on the pricing point though as a quick search on-line shows the smallest 50 amp unit to be priced at £300. Then you have to add a battery and installation, £50-100 approx. Then you still have to buy some wire and connectors. In contrast I've just bought 20 metres of 60mm cable plus far too many terminals and 2 metres of heat shrink for £90. I'm not sure that you could get anywhere near that price with a 12v to 12v charger set up. Plus you've got far more installation hassle and one more bit of kit to go wrong.
 
Moscowman100 said:
We have a Stirling DC to DC Battery charger in the bow together with a dedicated windlass battery. IIRC, the charger limits current draw to approx 70A so we did not need to change the old, slightly undersized, cable from the engine (not house) alternator. The charging circuit has a voltage sensor so that full output goes initially to the starter battery and only charges the windlass battery when fully charged. Circuit protection at both ends. No where nearly as expensive as running a 'proper' sized cable.

Just installed a 1400W Quick Windlass to replace a very knackered Lofrans - so far works well & has a manual chain release as well as built in chain counter.
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Sorry to post again but I just read the installation instructions for the Stirling 12v to 12v charger and you still need to run big fat cables. If for example you have a 55 amp alternator then you've still got to get those amps up to the bow without excessive voltage drop... that means standard cable sizing calculations and the result... big fat cables.

I also noticed that Sterling recommend something really dangerous and against all safe electrical wiring practices. They advise that if you can't get big enough cable then double or even treble up smaller diameter cable. In this situation for example, if one terminal joint out of say two cables becomes detached then you are still connected by an undersized cable which then melts and sets your boat on fire! If one big fat cable gets disconnected then you just get disconnected. I'm astounded that Sterling recommend this unsafe practice.
 
Vonassi

Points taken. I have a 50' ketch so I would have needed nearly twice your cable length & thickness to meet max draw on a 1400W windlass, plus I would have needed to do some fairly extreme surgery & hassle to install such a cable. Instead, I looked for ways to be able to safely use my existing thick, but not chunky enough, cable.

My solution may not work for everyone or be cheaper for all sizes of boats but I can say works well - and took about 3 hours to install.

Agree with you re multiple undersized cabling - strange advise.
 
Moscowman100 said:
Vonassi

Points taken. I have a 50' ketch so I would have needed nearly twice your cable length & thickness to meet max draw on a 1400W windlass, plus I would have needed to do some fairly extreme surgery & hassle to install such a cable. Instead, I looked for ways to be able to safely use my existing thick, but not chunky enough, cable.

My solution may not work for everyone or be cheaper for all sizes of boats but I can say works well - and took about 3 hours to install.

Agree with you re multiple undersized cabling - strange advise.
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Ah, yes on your size boat with a 1400W winch too you would probably need something in the region of 90mm cable or bigger to run straight from domestic batteries to windlass. This would be completely impracticable to run through the boat so the 12v to 12v charger or just cable sized for your alternator output, plus a battery up in the bow are the only sensible solutions. If you only had say a 55 amp alternator on a boat your size then the cable size would be reduced to 50mm by my guesstimate.

It always amazes me when I measure up cable runs how much longer they are once you have gone round all the corners to get from A to B. I guesstimated my cable run from from just aft of amidships to the windlass in the bow to be approx 12 metres there and back. When I measured it it was more like 16. Somewhere behind the toilet 4 metres of extra cable needs to be used! This difference is the difference between using 50mm or 60 mm cable.I wonder how many professional engineers actually get the guestimate wrong when quoting for a job and then go ahead and install the wrong size cable?

I'm wandering off topic again, so will shut up and go and start installing the new windlass, especially as it has stopped raining here in Turkey and the sun is out again!
 
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vyv_cox said:
My Maxwell windlass has the same construction, i.e. aluminium body with a carbon steel motor casing. I have painted it and greased it to overcome corrosion, with limited success. Last season I wrapped it with Denso tape, a superb product for this type of application, which seems to have been totally successful. It's sticky and not nice to handle, so I wrapped it in polythene and tape.
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Thanks for the idea, Vyv. In fact, from new I had run a bead of Sikaflex 291 over the two joints on the motor body (peeled off for the photograph), obviously unsuccessfully.

But it never occured to me that product designed to be used in an anchor well would not be waterproof - sounds like "not fit for purpose". My old electric windlass was waterproof, provided the chain didn't rub it. It seems like the technology has moved backwards.
 
multihullsailor6 said:
After reading a windlass test in an UK boating magazine I am planning to purchase a Southern Pacific windlass which came out tops in that report
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Would the mag be the April issue of Practical Boat Owner?
They tested the South Pacific VS600, where the 600 means equivalent to a 600W windlass but it only had a max pull of 275kg while the Lewmar 700W had a max pull of 650kg. The equivalent rating seems to be more than a little bit optimistic and the VS600 should probably be compared to 300W windlasses.
For some strange reason the mag does not appear to have actually tested the max pull but just relied on the manufacturers information. :mad:
 
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