Westerly Longbow Wheel Steering Problem.

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Quandary

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A friend has recently purchased a W. Longbow Ketch and as he lives far away I am trying to help him by sorting problems in time for crane day.
The vendor had said that the rudder itself was jammed but when the cables were released from the quadrant it was fine. On this boat the steering column is part of the moulding with the step for the mizzen mast on top of it. This means access is only available through a couple of small panels fore and aft and it is impossible to see the steering drum.
The cables are 7x19 flexible ss wire running through semi flexible sleeves at each side, there is some adjustment at the sleeve spigots and in the swaged end fitting which each run to the opposite ends of the quadrant. After considerable effort I discovered that one of the cables had got looped over the drum end plate inside the binnacle and by releasing the other side I manage to pull it clear and everything was moving again. BUT there is now about 4" too much slack in each cable so I presume that there should be another turn in one or both of the cables around the drum. The wires appear to be attached to the drum by some sort of nipples as I can feel the rough ends, but no chance of getting at them.
I took the wheel off, planning to drive the shaft out the front to drop the drum enough to get another turn over it but could not budge it without risking damage, there is no gap between the top of the drum plate and the top of the binnacle so I can not get a loop over while it is in situ.
Obviously this is something that someone will have tackled when replacing cables so I am hoping that one of you will be able to advise me of the sequence of work to get at the drum.
Westerly Longbow ketches are not so common but someone must have owned one? Or is there another boat with a similar arrangement.
I have suggested to the owner that he tries the W. Owners forum to see if we can get advice there, but meantime any suggestions will be grasped at, the boat is being moved from Argyll to Cumbria, probably single handed in a fortnight and while there is an effective emergency tiller it would be better if it could be steered using the wheel.
 
I replied to Steve on his other post.
Bear in mind it was 1999 when I did my Renown. There is a long post on the Westerly forum under "Westetly 33 steering stiff" or something like that. (Search "vegable+steering" on tne Westerly forum - it was my first post I think)
At the forward end of the steering binacle/mizen mast support is a small hatch. If you remove the 6 screws you will reveal a round (can't remember the correct word) "bakalite" disc with 4 screws in it. This is the forward end and bearing for the steering wheel shaft. Unscrew the screws, pull off the disc and you'll find the shaft will then drop.
Now, the wires/steering cables are fastened to the drum by being trapped by a slot with a plate over the top which is screwed onto the drum. One set of cables is wound clockwise on the drum and to one side of the drum, and the other set is wound counter clockwise and on the otherside of the drum. Needless to say after 18 years I can't remember which! You will have to remove all the hatches on the binacle and do alot of it by feel and I think I wedged a mirror in there too.
Be careful when lowering the drum as the cables spin off and create a birds nest.
It took me a full afternoon to sort out and it's a one man job 'cos there isn't room for a helper. You'll also get a lot of scratches!
If you want, pm me with your phone number and I'll talk it over with you and phone me when you're on your boat and I'll talk you through it. Unfortunately I'm not coming back to Arisaig till next summer otherwise I'd offer to call in.
Best of luck
Mike
 
Hi Mike, thanks for your support, I have the panels off but I am relying on feel as I can not get my head in to any sort of alignment. I took the round plate with four bolts that you refer to off a couple of times, it has a toggle on the back which goes in a slot and thus connects the shaft to the drum. (the wheel is free when it is off). I think the position of this determines the centring of the wheel. Behind it is a larger rectangular plate which the cable had been looped round and deeper in beyond that are two more bolt heads. With the drive plate off I can only get a couple of mm. of vertical movement of the mechanism which is why I had to push the cable under rather than over the rect. plate to get it back on the drum, there does not appear to be clearance between this plate and the mizzen mast step. I am reluctant to dismantle further because of the risk of making things worse but I may be a bit braver when Steve comes up tomorrow.
Unfortunately, I have been booked to take a boat through the canal tomorrow so that will take most of the morning.

My next plan; dismantle again and remove the drive plate, rotate the drum to take up the slack on the starboard cable ( the one that has not been displaced) centre the rudder and wheel disconnect the port cable from the quadrant to give me as much slack as possible and try and get it round the drum again , checking to see that the wires are not crossed. Easier said than done? but Steve is much younger and more flexible than I am. What do you think?
Appreciate your input, if you think of anything else, particularly how to get the wire over the rectangular back plate or if it is safe to take off the two inner bolts and expect to get them on again. Do you remember how many turns each wire makes round the drum, it feels like one and a half?
 
scottie said:
This may be a Morse/Lewmar system if that's any help
Click to expand...

Scottie, I think you may be right, but because Westerly have moulded the wheel post with the cockpit and placed the mizzen mast step on top of it you do not get access to the cable drum that you would expect with a conventional binnacle housing. Can you recommend anyone around the Clyde who might understand these things?
 
Unfortunately, I can't remember the numer of turns, not even to guess at.
And I've forgotten about the plate behind the Tufnal disc - on mine the disc was loose and the 4 fixing screw holes had to be re tapped out to M6 thread size.
It would be silly of me to try and guess any more as it will just mislead you. I did however manage to release the drum and lower it down so I was able to rewind the cables correctly.
If it's any help, I did mine with no info at all. I just undid things as I went along trying to sort it out - mine was wrongly wound and the wires rubbed against each other and made the steering very stiff. I made the mistake of turning the steering wheel with the wires disconnected from the quadrant and this made freeing the drum essential as the wires came off the drum and made nice loops everywhere!
Mike

Found my posting. Afterwards a chap call jaques posted some more and I think this will help you a bit more if you read to the end
http://www.westerly-owners.co.uk/wo...3&t=1173&sid=700f0d4016c3662ed09a0eb496a556c3
Mike
 
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Thanks for your input, the fact that you were able to sort it out by approaching the problem methodically is encouraging, if the secret reveals itself I will come back and report.
 
Quandary said:
Thanks for your input, the fact that you were able to sort it out by approaching the problem methodically is encouraging, if the secret reveals itself I will come back and report.
Click to expand...

I dropped by to offer you moral support today, but you weren't there and it was piddling down so I didn't hang around. The boat looks excellent!
 
Quandary said:
Scottie, I think you may be right, but because Westerly have moulded the wheel post with the cockpit and placed the mizzen mast step on top of it you do not get access to the cable drum that you would expect with a conventional binnacle housing. Can you recommend anyone around the Clyde who might understand these things?
Click to expand...
Sorry no but you could try lewmar but I think it was all some time ago "cobra " may have been the systems trade name
 
Thanks all, we had a go today.
Does anyone have any idea how many turns around the drum there should be on steering systems like this?
It's just two steering wires, ( thro a conduit) attached to a quadrant and then wound round a Tufnell drum in the steering binnacle.
The port side cable is jumping off the drum and jamming.
We'll have another go tomorrow.
 
I was away this morning taking a boat through but meantime Stephen and his mate Iain had another go, They took the wheel off (again), extracted the spindle forward then managed to manipulate the drum out of the binnacle allowing them a bit more room to place the wires, a cable tie around the wires helped keep them in position until they manipulated the drum back into position using a long screwdriver as a temporary spindle, with the wheel back on everything seems to work as it should though for now the steering feels very stiff but surely will improve with use. Stephen managed this lying on his back on the floor of the cockpit with his legs over the coaming, a position I could not have adopted for the last 25 years.
The afternoon was spent on the engine, the old impeller was changed and about 20 litres of mucky diesel/water emulsion was extracted from the bottom of the fuel tank, filters were changed, lines flushed and the engine fired up and ran fine. So once the boat is lifted in, the rig sorted and bent on she should be good to go to her new home in Cumbria.
Our thanks to all, in particular Vegable who linked us to information that was relevant to this particular boat.
 
I'll second that, thanks vegable, your old threads were carefully scrutinised :)
The second day I had that steering drum out three times! If anyone ever has to do this, the crucial thing is have someone down the quadrant adjusting and keeping tension on the cables at all times.
The port cable was very badly kinned and twisted ins everal places, and has some slight wire fraying, with resultant sharp and sore little wire snags. Spent about 30-40 mins just massaging the steel cable to work out the kinks and twists, that helped a lot.

First time put two turns around, reinstalled, port cable attached to quadrant, but not enough in the system to attach the starboard side, about 3 inches.
Took drum back out, took one turn off, but system was now way too slack. wheel turned beautifully but big loop rose up on drum from starboard cable, bound to jump off.
Third time back to two turns, but this time attached quadrant first, then rotated drum so starboard cable was at the bottom, giving an extra couple of inches of travel. Then put the drum back in, took a bit of doing wit the quadrant tensioned but got there in the end, and it worked, albeit stiff.

We did notice that the cables cross over on the way up the binnacle to the drum. We rotated the drum so that didnt happen, but found once installed that it was back like that, and assumed it was the normal thing. Perhaps not?

The port cable comes up the binnacle and onto the aft section of the drum, the starboard cable goes onto the fwd section, and they basically form an elongated x in the binnacle pedestal.

I might try correcting this in future, but not ebough time before launch to look at that now.
 
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