For those keeping score at home, earlier entries are here and here. With some help from a friend, I got my Simpson-Lawrence (Lewmar) Sprint 400 anchor windlass removed from the foredeck of Two Lucky Fish. It wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared it would be, but it was very helpful having another set of hands along.

If nothing else, somebody could take pictures of me working!

Once the windlass was removed, it was time to clean up the deck. To start with, I removed as much of the old bedding compound as I could using “mechanical” means. The best tool, it turned out, was an improvised tool: a sheet of some scrap plastic I had picked up at TAP Plastics for another project. I’d brought this along to cushion the foredeck while we used  various levers and a small pry-bar to gently lift up the windlass body WITHOUT damaging the surface of the deck. It worked well in that role, and then came in handy again for the clean up, too:

The diamond grid of the foredeck’s nonskid texture made it tough to get at the remaining caulking, but this little improvised soft scraper was great for working away at it.

Once I got the windlass out, I spoke with Lewmar’s windlass guru, Dan Walton. He looked at the photos I posted, and…wasn’t quite sure what was wrong. But clearly, there was something wrong with the gear and mainshaft assembly, from my report. He recommended that I speak with the folks at The Offshore Store.

Oh, I know those guys! They’re always helping me out with one thing or another. Why didn’t I think of them before? Here’s why: I think of The Offshore Store in terms of navigation electronics, and it didn’t occur to me that they might sell, install, and service windlasses too.

But they do. Kyle Holloway took one look at my bucket of parts and said I should replace it, upgrading to the Lewmar V700. It was obvious, to the trained eye, that the mainshaft seal and the mainshaft bearing had failed, which created so much friction that the unit was essentially jammed. That’s what I experienced as “sluggish performance”.

And I was still attempting to use it, back when it was hooked up! So there was some collateral damage as well. All told, he thought the parts and labor to fix it would amount to over half the cost of a brand new unit.

A new unit, by the way, which incorporates several feature improvements over my Sprint 400. The V700 is a lot better windlass, apparently. So we decided that my windlass “overhaul” would become a windlass “upgrade”.

But I can’t finish it by the time I start my August cruise. Which is tomorrow, by the way. Call me nuts, but I’m a little offended at the idea of heading out on a cruise with duct tape on the foredeck. Even fancy blue duct tape. It just ain’t right.

So last night, I had an idea…why not create a cap/plate to cover the hole? I could use the existing metal clamping plate as a template, and just cut the cap out of…more surplus plastic from TAP! I had some 1/4-inch material…I’m not positive what it is, but it’s something like Delrin. Just right for this project.

I spent about an hour fabricating this piece, using a small table saw in frightening ways I won’t describe here. But I appear to have retained functioning fingers and eyes, and here’s the result, ready to install aboard the boat. I made the white cap plate, and the black clamping plate is leftover from the Sprint 400:

I’ll be down at the boat today to do some provisioning. I’ll pick up some fasteners on the way, and…uh-oh…what should I use for bedding compound? I don’t want anything permanent, and it doesn’t have to form a perfect seal, since I’m going to drill a larger opening for the new windlass anyway. I just want to keep most of the water out. More when I figure it out!