It’s not all sun and games
In case our recent posts here have caused you to think otherwise, we do from time to time continue to mix a bit of work in with our pleasure. The saga with our anchor windlass continues but I am happy to report that, after living in our cockpit for the previous 2 weeks, disassembled into more than a dozen pieces, I was able to reinstall the unit onto our bow yesterday. We surmise that the main shaft for some reason became seized, causing a washer inside to break and perhaps become lodged in between the gears. Or perhaps the washer broke first, who knows? It’s a chicken and egg thing. Regardless, it is back together now and appears to be working. I will be holding off on sealing it to the deck, and announcing my repair job a success until we have successfully anchored a few times using it.
That’s not the only repair job on our “list” though. When sailing back from Carricou a few weeks ago, a particularly large and unexpected wave caused Rebecca to stumble in the cockpit and bump into our Lexan companionway door. The result of this meeting of butt to door was a fairly large crack (in the door, not the butt). My first inclination was to simply have a new door cut from the same material but I was told that it would be quite expensive, if the material could even be sourced here. It was instead suggested that I try glueing it together. After a bit of research, and shopping at the various stores here, I settled on some stuff called PermaPoxy 5 minute Plastic Weld. I took a crack (no pun intended) at the repair job this morning and let me say that that stuff sets up fast! The repair job may not be pretty but when it’s done curing, I think it should be strong enough. It will have to do until we can find the material to replace the door completely.
Now that you announce the cause, and I go back and look a the pictures, I vote for seizure then breakage. Hopefully when it was reassembled, you were able to use some good salt water proof bearing grease, and it will work for another 10-15 years!
Another 10-15 years? I really don’t think they build things to last that long anymore. This one is only 2 years old!
I would consider taking it apart yearly and greasing it an item to put on the maintenance list then. Besides, you can take it apart in 30 seconds now, right?
Yes, that is a new item on the preventative maintenance list, just like the other winches.
lexan…bullet proof, but not butt proof!
🙂
I just bought some lexan for my boat 3/8 solar bronze from a guy called Gene at http://www.go2popdisplays.com/servlet/the-template/contactus/Page. He will ship. That being said I had to splice some small pieces and used something similar to weld on by IPS. Tested strength and it is very strong. You can ask him about the repair also.
Thanks for that link Richard but I couldn’t imagine shipping a piece of Lexan that big here to Grenada. I bet the shipping costs would be killer.
Lexan is very strong, as you know, but it is vulnerable to scratches that break the skin, or so I was told, but it is certainly susceptible to “stress fractures”. You might find it a good idea to slack off the fittings a little and see if any are distorting the panel. Otherwise I am very surprised that Rebecca should be able to cause that damage.
Mike
I don’t know. She fell into it pretty hard just below the hinge. There were no visible cracks there prior to that.
The crack is only visible when she’s wearing the Conch Republic bikini ;-D
Nice. 🙂