Quick [Rider R3] Windlass experience

geoffschultz

Member
Joined
15 Dec 2001
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27
Location
Caribbean
www.geoffschultz.org
Quick Windlass experience

I'm anchored at Lighthouse Reef in Belize, which is about 30 miles offshore & my Muir VR1000R012E windlass stripped the worm gear. It's pulled up many anchors in it's 21 years, so it owes us nothing. Luckily there's a dive resort here with 10 KBps Internet, so at least I can do a bit of research, albeit very slow.

Unfortunately I've discovered that Muir (Australia) no longer makes this windlass, but I could have it special made in 12 weeks for $5600 USD]. No thanks! So I've been off trying to find a replacement that will work. At this point in time, the only one that I can find is a Quick Rider R3, which is made in Italy, but appears to be available in the US.

Q1: Does anyone have any experience with this Quick windlasses and possibly this model? I'm from the US and Quick is not a common brand.

To explain my issue, my old windlass was a vertical windlass mounted vertically. The chain comes across the top of the windlass and is stripped off at the bottom. Then you have to push it forward and into the chain locker. Far from ideal, but it works.

All of the other vertical windlasses that I've found pull the chain from the right hand side and strip it at the left, where it falls down a hole into the chain locker. This wouldn't work for me as the chain would pull from the bottom and then when it got stripped off, would fall over the chain being pulled.

Q2: Other than doing major surgery on the anchor locker, which I do not want to do in Belize, does anyone have any suggestions?

The attached photos show the entire anchor locker and a closeup of where the gypsy and capstan mount.


-- Geoff

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Re: Quick Windlass experience

I have a Quick Hector 1000W windlass in the same orientation which has been reliable for 10 years apart from a shaft oil seal leak which was easily fixed for a couple of Pounds with a new oil seal.

Richard
 
Re: Quick Windlass experience

Quick is a well established brand of windlass. However looking at your locker and platform suggest you look at a Lofrans horizontal axis windlass such as a Cayman model. It would sit on the platform and the chin would exit from the bottom of the gypsy. Go on their website and you will see the range of windlasses with drawings to show how they fit. Lofrans is arguably the best of the European windlasses and a favourite with charter fleets for power and robustness. Only downside is they have aluminium housings so makes sense to take all the stainless fastenings out and coat them with Duralec to minimise corrosion.
 
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