Why It Is Important to Service Your Winches
Winches are one of the most neglected pieces of equipment on a sailboat. Winches are robust and when properly maintained, can last a lifetime. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), winches can also last a pretty long time even if they are not well maintained, and because of this, many boat owners think that they can get away without servicing them.
Everyone knows that you have to regularly service your engine to keep it running smoothly, because nobody wants to be stuck without an engine. But there is a reason many sailboats are called “auxiliary sailboats”. It’s because the engine is an auxiliary or supplemental form of propulsion for when there is no wind. The main “engine” on a sailboat is the sails, and winches are an important part of the sail handling system. Powerful sails can sometimes be impossible to tame without the mechanical advantage provided by winches.
Hopefully this blog post will illustrate the importance of winches and give boat owners some indicators to look for to know when their winches need servicing.
The easiest way to know when your winch needs servicing is to feel and listen to it. If your winch is difficult to turn, then it probably means that the grease inside has hardened and gummed up the bearings. Winches should turn very easily. They are there to help you, not to make it more difficult to trim the sails.
Winches should also make a consistent clicking sound. This is the sound of the pawls engaging on the ratchet gears. This is what prevents the winch from spinning the wrong way. If the clicking is muffled or inconsistent, it probably means that some grease has gotten on the pawls and is making them stick, or the pawl springs have lost some of their springiness. Either way, a proper cleaning and inspection is needed to diagnose and solve the problem.
This video shows what a winch sounds and feels like before and after a winch service. The winch on the left has just been serviced and clicks loudly and consistently as it spins freely with little resistance. The winch on the right is difficult to spin and the clicking is muted and inconsistent.
Here is the winch on the right again, before an after servicing.
Here is another video to illustrate what it looks like inside a winch when the grease is hardened and the bearings don’t spin. The owner told me that the boat had sat unused for at least 10 years. I’m sure it had been even longer since those winches had been serviced. The grease on the gear teeth was hard enough that when we scraped it off, it came off in chunks that were so solid that you could still see the shapes of the gear teeth.
These next pictures are some before and afters of a winch that had way too much grease inside and was also covered with pet hair. The combination of lots of grease and lots of hair prevented the winch from functioning properly. Besides infrequent maintenance, over-greasing is another big problem when it comes to winches. Some boat owners (and unfortunately some riggers too) think that more grease is better and that it will allow them to go longer between services. This is incorrect! The more grease there is, the more dirt and gunk it will attract and hold onto, like all this pet hair. Grease should be applied in a light thin layer. There should be no big globs of it.
Besides cleaning the inside of a winch, the other reason to perform regular winch services is to inspect the parts for wear and damage. Below are some examples of worn parts and damage discovered during winches services. These are just a few problems that winches can have, there are many more!
Winches are complex machines. One small worn or damaged part can wreak havoc and cause even more damage if not addressed quickly. This is why we recommend that winches be serviced annually. One of the biggest inhibitors to frequent winch services is the cost. A proper and thorough winch service can take 1-2 hours per winch depending on the condition. This can add up if you have 6-8 winches on your boat! Here at Puget Sound Rigging, we have you and your boat’s best interests in mind. While having a professional rigger service your winches every year is ideal, we know that not everyone has that kind of money in their cruising kitty, and we get it, we are boat owners too after all! So stay tuned for future blog posts about winches including a detailed how-to on servicing winches yourself. If you do want a professional to service your winches and you are in the Puget Sound area, look no further than Puget Sound Rigging!