[Public-List] new winches

J Bergquist jbergqui at gmail.com
Tue Apr 29 14:13:23 PDT 2008


My boat came with 2 lifelines. Most boats have only one, but for some reason
a PO had outfitted mine with 2 somewhere along the line. I kind of like
having 2.

Most of my stanchions are original and have collars for the lower lifelines.
These came with the boat. i'm not crazy about the collars because they chafe
the lifelines, but I"m also not crazy about replacing them.

When I bought the boat she was outfitted with a boom gallows. I removed it
so long ago I can't even find a picture of it anywhere. I hated that silly
thing because you could not sheet the main anywhere close to correctly with
it installed and the PO had insisted that it was a safety thing to protect
people from an accidentaly jibe, which I think is baloney but that's my
opinion. The oldest pic I can find (since I have owned the boat) is this one
and the gallows is already gone:
http://www.alberg30.org/pictures/CanAm2002/photo5.html although that one
does have the original bronze one-speed winches which I still have
somewhere.

Anyhow, when I removed the boom gallows I had to install some stanchions in
its place which I got at Bacon's and they were only 7/8" (the rest are 1")
and did not have intermediate holes so I used the same hardware as had been
on the gallows, which worked fine. However, I got new lifelines last year
and installed pelican hooks to make a gate for entry in the cockpit, which
is really nice. The problem is that I didn't realize (because I'm a moron)
that normally lifelines are made with shackles at the last stanchion which
is the end and the pelican hooks are attached from the pulpit forward to the
shackle. This way the lifeline does not go slack when you open the gate.
After I had got my lifelines I saw this arrangement on another boat and
thought 'Geez that would really be better than having my lifelines go slack
when the gate is open. So then I was going to have the lifelines redone but
the rigger told me that I could just use a bushing to hold the tension on
when the gate's open so I got some of those which they sell at Fawcett for
$3 each or something and that was a lot cheaper than re-doing the lifelines.
Thank god for an honest (and overworked) rigger.

All this is a long way of saying that the stanchions I bought at bacon's
were also 7/8" and I decided while I was in the process of installing the
winch bases I should probably fix those so they're 1" like the rest of them
so I went to Tops In Quality and asked them what they had in stock that
would come close to fitting my application and they sold me 4 new stanchions
for $40 each. I am planning on installing the other 2 in way of the shrouds
which when I bought the boat the surveyor told me I should do and he put it
in the survey and the insurance co wants it done. Nevermind that they
haven't done anything about it in the 6 years I've owned the thing but
anyway the stanchions weren't too expensive so I figured I'd get htem and
someday (not today) I'll get around to installing them.

So that's a long way of telling you where all that hardware came from.

Can't overstate how much I love the winches, and the lifelines with bushings
and nice new stanchions throughbolted with 1/4" G10 backing plates and gate
braces is not too shabby either! I'm not exaggerating when I say I was
working on the boat past midnight every night last week and on thursday I
was literally up till 3 AM doing boat work. My crew showed up on Friday at 7
and had to wake me up cuz I was passed out.

I'll post pix of the stanchion, taffrail, pulpit, electrical panel and so on
in due time.

Later,

JB

 1209503603.0


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