Cleaning and Greasing Winches (Friday - March 12, 2010)

I know that the cruising life sounds totally fun without hard work... maybe even glamorous... okay, that's a stretch. However, today was an example of the opposite. Today, I cleaned and greased winches. Those of you with sick minds need not respond. I don’t want to hear it. My husband is bad enough as it is.

I tore apart the equipment mounted on the mast that helps raise or tighten the lines... basically, really important stuff. Sails go up or down, sail shapes are created by letting them out or by sheeting them in. Sailboats are full of ropes that are pushed or pulled and I cleaned and made slippery the metal, rolly thingies that make them work better and give the crew more control over the sails and direction the boat may go!

It was messy, greasy, dirty and my fingernails are now UGLY! We have (2) Barient 21 easy-to-deal-with winches and then we have (3) Barient 28 winches that are much more complex. Then, there are two more, but I don’t know what kind because I haven’t made it to them yet. The winches I cleaned were either full of hard, solidified grease (which is why we had trouble pulling the lines with them) or they had no grease at all and were frozen solid. Now, these winches move freely and like well-oiled-machines because of my efforts.

I used diesel and a toothbrush to clean the hardened grease out of the teeth of the gears. It really broke the gummy goo down fast! I dried off all the parts and then used a heavy duty Harkens grease to lube all the parts. The pawls and springs were oiled down with machine oil (I used the stuff that came with my hair clippers I use to cut the guy's hair) and then I put everything back together.

Okay, I don’t usually take as many pictures of the process, but because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to reconstruct their original make-up... I took lots of pictures. Digital cameras have paved the way to PROVING what it looked like before you tore it all apart! I am so grateful!