Winch, what is it good for?

NUTMEG

NUTMEG

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My new (to me) Westerly 21 (same as a warwick) has a very useful looking winch mounted on the port side of the mast. We guessed it would be handy for hoisting jib and mainsail. The respective halyards run down to the winch on that side so it all seemed very clear. However, I have a small problem in so much as I don't know how to cleat off the halyards after hoisting/tensioning. The respective cleats sit above the winch and for the life of me I can not see how one would use the winch then cleat off, say, the jib, because there is no way of cleating it without leaving it on the winch drum. Remove it from the drum and all tension is lost. Leave the jib halyard around the winch drum and cleat it, and you can not use the winch for the main halyard!

So there you have the problem. What am I missing here? I am sure you clever salty seadogs will think me an idiot, but never had a winch on my Wayfarer or Seawych and confess it has me stummped.
 
Do you really need to winch the main?

And if you do, once it is aloft, don't you adjust the cunnigham/gooseneck so the need to move the halyard from winch to cleat 'bar-tight' is less important no?

Just use it on the jib and cleat off leaving the halyard on the drum.

That is how I see it anyhow.
 
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It's a while since I've sailed a boat with a winch on the mast (though I do like the arrangement) but I would expect to leave the halyard on the drum. The boat I sailed had main on the starboard side and jib on port though, so your issue didn't arise. This worked well because it put all the reefing gear (tack horns, clew pendants on a third winch below the gooseneck, and halyard) in one place, which meant that reefing was possible with one person and easier (no shouting back to the cockpit) with two. Similarly it let two people work more closely together to handle jibs on the foredeck, rather than remote-controlling the halyard from back aft.

I don't really know what to suggest in your case.

One approach would be to use a stopper, a short length of line that's secured low down, then hitched round the halyard above the winch and used to take the strain while it's transferred to the cleat. This is what we do on the tall ships, but I'm certain it's not what was intended on your boat and it would be quite fiddly.

Another possibility, if your boat's only 21 feet, is that one or other of the sails doesn't need a winch. Perhaps the jib will go up perfectly satisfactorily with a good heave? I hoist all four sails on my 24 footer with no winches, although I do have small tackles on most of them.

Finally, you could fit jammers or clutches of some kind above the winch, so you can lock off one line while hoisting the other. Possibly expensive, and it's always a bit nerve-racking drilling holes in a mast, but certainly the most usable solution.

I don't know what the original designer's intention was.

Pete
 
Thanks so far chaps. Not a problem hoisting by hand, in fact, a lot faster then winching. It is just that, as the winch is there, and looks original, I assumed it must be there for a reason.

Anyway it makes Alexandros look like a proper boat!
 
Dogwatch has told you the answer.

Use the winch to get the jib halliard tensioned, leave it on the drum & cleat underneath the winch.

The main can be raised manually with the boom gooseneck at the top of its track. Just swig the halliard up as tight as you can, then tension the main luff by pulling down the boom gooseneck & securing it as far down the track as you can. You can use a boom downhaul, or just sit on the boom, if you need more leverage to get the luff taut.

Simples, it is a smallish boat & the forces are not great. I sometimes don't bother with the halliard winches on my 31' Pentland, I just swig the halliards tight before cleating them off. But I ain't racing either.

EDIT:
If you really must winch both halliards you will need to fit 2 x cam cleats above the winch to hold the tension on the halliards after you release them from the winch.
 
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Thanks Searush and others. Very much appreciated. Reckon the winch will be relegated to light air days then and only for hhe jib. Sail trim is really something we need to start getting our heads around!

Still, every trip we learn a bit more, all part of the fun!
 
Sophie19 said:
Thanks Searush and others. Very much appreciated. Reckon the winch will be relegated to light air days then and only for hhe jib. Sail trim is really something we need to start getting our heads around!

Still, every trip we learn a bit more, all part of the fun!
Click to expand...

You often sail better with a looser luff in light airs. When you need a really tight luff is when the wind pipes up.
 
If you have a furling jib on your boat there will possibly be no jib halyard at all,thus your winch is spare. The reason is, that, in case of my furling setup (a Colnreef furler) the luff of the jib is fed in to the foil and hoisted to the top of the foil by a wire with a hard eye that passes through a fixed pulley wheel at the top of the foil and is led down to a rope tail. The rope tail is passed through some loops on top of the furling spool and forms a purchase to tension the sail luff.
The forestay /foil is a fixture to the mast itself and is tensioned by the backstaay and shrouds.
I have two winches attached to the mast and the port side one is redundant.

ianat182
 
Halyards

As has been said to use one winch you need cam cleats or better still clutches to lock the halyard under tension. So winch can be used for the other halyard.

My boat has everything led back to the cockpit ie back of the cabin top.
A long time ago looking at this problem I found cam cleats not very satisfactory and clutches very expensive. I find another pair of cheap winches which solved the problem. Even now small winches are not much more expensive than a good clutch. So I can use foolproof horn cleats after the winch. The winch being the best thing to take the load. And in my case I still have a winch for reef line at the tack and another for reef line at the clue. Later someone gave me a clutch so the main halyard now does not have to stay on the winch so the winch is available for vang or outhaul. The clutchh does slip a bit though.
Now all this probably seems (and is ) an overkill on a 21 ft boat. But the winches really make line handling easy. It has a big mainsail.
I found that spectra halyard on the jib still seems able to stretch so that I need occasionally to retension jib halyard. The main has a wire with rope tail so not so much problem there.

You will find especially if you have polyester ropes for halyards that stretch is a real problem. For the main it means that the boom can start to sag down as you haul on the main sheet. For the jib you will find scallops of sag in the jib luff between the hanks. This is not so bad for light winds but when the wind gets nearer the top of the range for that jib that performance on the wind falls away. Yes I like to race but I think any sailor wants the best performance possible out of his boat going to windward. A few degrees poorer pointing means a lot longer trip home into the wind when you really have had enough.

So I would suggest you move the winch to the cabin top as along term plan. Then add another winch for the other halyard and for reefing and look at cam cleats for holding the reefing lines and halyards.
IMHO on a small boat you want to be able to do everything from the cockpit without going forward.
(remember boats are primarily designed to a price not for convenience)

By the way on one boat I was involved with the jib halyard was external to the mast. It had a wire halyard but this would apply to rope as well. A small pulley was attached to the bottom of the halyard. Another rope went through the pulley and had a bowline knot in the end. Initially the sail was pulled up using the rope with the bowline as a stopper knot at the pulley. ie with sail down the pulley and bowling were near the top of the mast. When the bowline/pulley cam within reach the bowline is pulled down and hooked around a cleat. Now when the other end of the rope is pulled you have a 2 purchase tackle on the halyard which is wrapped around the horn cleat. Of course this won't work for internal halyards as the pulley won't fit through the mast exit hole. All IMHO olewill
 
Winch, huh, what is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

Unless you are very feeble you really shouldn't need a winch on a boat that size. Maybe for cranking someone up the mast on a bosuns chair or trying to get some more luff tension on a loaded sail.
 
Difference of opinion

smonard said:
Absolutely nothing.

Unless you are very feeble you really shouldn't need a winch on a boat that size. Maybe for cranking someone up the mast on a bosuns chair or trying to get some more luff tension on a loaded sail.
Click to expand...

Well there is a range of opinion smonard says throw it away and olewill says buy 3 more or at least one more. You take your chances on this forum olewill
 
Most bases have been covered but if I can just add:

On our Westerly Windrush the winch (if we had one, I can't remember now) would have been used to tension the jib luff. The main was hoisted and then tensioned by loosening the gooseneck and swinging on it while it was screwed up tight an inch or so lower. The roller reefing boom was worked with a handle at the mast end of the boom.

My Centaur has a winch for the main halyard with a cleat below it as the roller reefing boom is opperated through the mast from a handle on the front of it and the gooseneck position is fixed. The jib is on roller reefing and doesn't need a winch on the mast.

If I was wanting to use your winch for both halyards I would fit jammers http://marinestore.co.uk/MT-Spinlock-SUA-2.html
but you probably don't need them, and the best option of clutches is probably a bit OTT.
 
Q.... "Finally, you could fit jammers or clutches of some kind above the winch, so you can lock off one line while hoisting the other."

I have 3 winches at the mast with no lines other than sheets and spinnaker guys coming to the cockpit.
Last season I fitted two clutches above two of the winches for the main and genoa halyards and I find thing are now much quicker, easier and possibly safer, especially when shorthanded.
 
Hi

Its not something simple, like the halyard comes down through the cleat, then onto the winch, so that its still cleated & you can take it off the winch, is it?

I was wondering if the cleat is the 'wrong' way for that to work, if someone had replaced the cleat upside down?

HTH
Richard
 
the main halyard should be on the stb side so that you can hoist reef or drop whilst on the stb tack close hauled thus being the stand on vessel on the majority of cases.
 
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