fixing winches on wooden spars

[stephane]

Hello from France !

I wondered what was the best way to fix winches on a spruce mast and boom.
I don't know where exactly the mat is full or grooved, so I thought some transfixing bolds would be the best, but how many drilling holes are enough to tighten the winch without weakening the spar?
I suppose there are also more practical places on the mast for the halyard winch, and on the boom for the reef. my "Bible" (J. Illingworth's Offshore) is rather poor on this subject.
the mast is keel stepped, and of course free of previous holes ...
the boat is a french 34ft cruiser racer from 1948 (sorry for those who were curious but I couldn't manage to display any picture on the message !)
thanks for all your answers.

stephane

[paladin]

I did not wish to put fasteners in the spar so I made a set of brackets that "clamped" around the nast similar to that which held the gooseneck.....that way I could put a winch on each side....

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I think Paladin's method is by far the best - avoiding any fasteners in the spar - but another good one is to glue a shaped hardwood pad onto the spar where the winch will go. Make the pad well oversize, to ensure a large glued area, and fasten the winch to it with short but stout screws, so that if the mast or boom is hollow they will only enter one side, after passing through the pad as well.

The hard part of this is shaping the pad, of course, as it need to be a really good fit.

Having roughed it out, tape a sheet of coarse sandpaper to the spar and rub the pad on it to get the final shape.

Yet another alternative, and a dead easy one if they are the right size of winch, is to use these Murray winches:

http://www.classicmarine.co.uk/images_versions/1040.jpg

which have a hinged base, espescially for fitting to round wooden spars.

They can be got in Europe here:http://www.classicmarine.co.uk/product.asp?product=150&cat=51&ph=cat&keywords=&recor=&SearchFor=&PT_ID=


You can check if the spars are solid or hollow by looking for the glue line (if none, they must be solid) and if there is a glue line compare the weight with a similar spar. Hollow spars are much lighter. I would expect it to be hollow.

Illingworth's "Offshore" is a great book.

[Ian McColgin]

You have to add a lot of closely spaced fastenings to mechanically weaken the mast. The greater danger is admitting moisture and the consequent rot. Chuck is right that a nice set of hoops banding the mast makes a great platform, but just screwing the winch on, done rightly, is also excellent and elegant.

I hope you're going with winches for rope, not reel winches for wire that were so popular a couple of decades ago. Hoisting the sail by just pulling it up and only using the winch and handle at the end is ever so much faster and perfectly easy on a small boat.

Also, if you're going aloft, a properly tended winch is far safer than the dubious safety of the reel winche's brake. And of course you cannot take yourself aloft solo with a wire halyard and reel winch.

Use all the holes in the winch base - likely at least six.

Make a winch pad that exactly fits the mast where you want the winch and which provides a flat surface for the winch base. I like to give that base a little overhang past verticle such that the winch barrel has a little down-lean, thus reducing the chance of a riding hitch when you're pulling fast with but one turn around the winch before adding a couple more turns and inserting the handle for final tensioning.

For a given job, you may well use several different lengths of screws as those at the sides of the winch must pass through more pad wood before getting to the mast. Ideally you'll work it out such that the unthreaded part of each screw just passes through the pad and the threads start in the mast wood.

Much as I love epoxy, I recommend a good traditional bedding compound between pad and mast and between winch and pad.

It's sometimes hard to get screws just the right length. You can use coarse threaded bolts instead. Just make the holes through the pad a hair large so the threads do not engage there and use the slightly undersized drill that goes with the tap for those bolts thread in the mast. Even without glue, a tapped hole in wood is a great anchor for a bolt. I like to put a bit of 5200 or some similarly tenacious bedding/glue on the threads of the bolt before screwing it in as that will help the whole mess not move and will provide more water barrior.

I personally disapprove of self-tailing winches in general and especially oppose their use on halyard winches. You're much more secure if the fall leads from the winch to a properlay anchored cleat with which it can share the load.

You may already have the winch or winches or you may be completely committed to them, in which case the following is not so useful:

Winches are much over-sold, wonderful as they are. On the main, a sliding goose neck with a good purchase down-haul obviates any need for the winch. And, truth be known, the same is true for the jib unless the tack area is cluttered with furling gear. One place where it's really hard to find a good substitute for a winch is the peak halyard of most gaff rigs. Anyway, you may find some simple and more cost-effective alternatives to winches.

One last thought: You might consider having a sort of inverted U or stout ss tubing mounted inot proper lifeline stauncheon bases coming to waist high on each side of the mast. These are wonderfully comforting when fighting it out with the halyard in a jumpy sea. One one boat, as we were replacing the winches anyway, I turned the concept around by putting a plank across under the apex of the U and putting the winches out there. Instead of leaning on the brace and facing the mast, one leaned on the mast and faced out. It made for silent halyards. Even if you prefer to face the mast - it provides a better view of the luff going up - have a way to flip slack halyards out to the braces.

Edited to add a truely last thought: Winch height above deck is a consideration. It's well to have them below the gooseneck if possible so that the boom and sail can't interfere with the occasional downwind set of strike. Especially on boats with no safety rails on either side of the mast, I like a lowish placement such that while I must stoop a bit if standing, in a hard chance I can sit, legs wrapped around the mast and have the winch about head high for relativly easy grinding with one hand, tailing with the other.

As can be seen, I'm less prejudiced than many about putting holes in the mast and attaching fittings. I somewhat disagree with Andrew about glueing the pad on. I don't trust glues all that much and the top and bottom of the pad will be much thinner - hard to get an adequate fastening in there that still stops short of the mast. Just bed everything well. Moisture intrusion is the real enemy.

G'luck

[paladin]

I concur with Ian on the reel halyard winches.....know lotsa folks from the 60's and early 70's that has had one or more wrists broken or fractured.......myself included...wanna buy a very slightly used Nicro reel halyard winch...:D

My gooseneck has a three part downhaul with the rig on a piece of heavy sailtrack....The winches are small compared to what you normally find in such cases....they were used primarily as a rapid means of getting the saild up without raising my arms over my head to haul.....sooovineeers from S.E.A.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I also concur on the wire reel winches. Diabolical things.

There is a neat trick with wire halyards, though, which my late father used. This needs no winches and has the benefits of both systems.

The halyard has two parts.

If it is a Bermudian mainsail halyard, there is a block on the head of the sail and a pair of cheek blocks each side of the mast. Headsails can be similar.

One part has a fibre rope tail spliced into an eye. The other part ends in a four part purchase, with one block on the wire and one on the deck. It is four parts so the hauling part leads up from the deck.

The end with the eye goes aloft as the sail comes down. You hoist the sail by hauling on the rope tail, until you can hook the eye on a hook on deck.

Finish off with the four part purchase - which of course is effectively eight to one, there being little friction in the wire blocks. If you scheme it right, so that the purchase is almost "two blocks" with the sail set, there is very little fibre rope to cause windage, although there is more when the sail is reefed, of course.

[rbgarr]

My gooseneck has a three part downhaul with the rig on a piece of heavy sailtrack....The winches are small compared to what you normally find in such cases....they were used primarily as a rapid means of getting the saild up without raising my arms over my head to haul.....sooovineeers from S.E.A.

S.E.A. as in the WESTWARD, CRAMER and SEAMAN schooners?

If so, I was a crew member on W-6 in the fall of 1972.

[paladin]

S.E.A. as in Vietnam War Games, Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club Division...:D

[stephane]

thanks for your so fast and acurate answers to my obvious problem. I'm not sure I caught every precious details, you damned Americans write as you speak : too fast ! ;-)
special thanks to Paladin for the advices on the wire halyard winches : I fully agree : as a hand surgeon i cannot imagine how sailors who use these winches still have their 10 fingers ! Of course i prefer textile halyards, with the difficulty to tighten the jib one properly...so I decided to use a winch. I think the mast is hollow because it's made of, at least, 2 glued planks. but it must be also full somewhere between the deck and the gooseneck (even if it weights like a whole full one ! ). there is yet a iron galva bracket with cleats for the several halyards, so I would prefer to glue 2 or 3 facing "pads" on the mast somewhere below the gooseneck at the right level when sitted (thanks Ian !). did someone ever glued the pads with the bolts inside out (i mean with the head of the bolts at the deep side, so the winches can be removed easily?)

thanks again,

stephane

[Bob Cleek]

Ian has it spot on. Your boat is a bit larger than mine, which is 25', but I'll tell you the best thing I ever did was to get rid of my halyard winches. I rebuilt the mast and didn't have time to reattach the winches when the crane was ready to step it. I figured I'd do it later. And later is as later does... so I went out without them. Amazing discovery! I could get every bit as much as I needed out of the main downhaul and swagging up on the cleats. (take a single turn with the bitter end held in the left hand, pull the standing part with the right...) I've found that you really don't need to haul a jib so tight it hums. All that does is stress the rig. Certainly not on a cruising boat. There are even thumb cleats made expressly for the purpose. This also permits the use of fibre halyards. Damnable things, those wire halyards!