Practical Guides

Servicing your Winches (not your wenches)

Something that should be done at least once a year!

Winches are perhaps among the more crucial pieces of equipment on a sail boat. Receiving almost constant use in the case of the sheet winches, and being essential in getting the sails hoisted up the mast, they are indeed important – particularly on a larger boat. They are unfortunately also possibly the one piece of equipment that sees the least amount of maintenance or attention. Beautifully engineered with seemingly complex systems of gears and ratchets, they are manufactured with a high degree of precision. With a modicum of TLC, they will operate smoothly and efficiently for many decades.

Many sailors, even seasoned and experienced ones, have approached me while I was working on my winches in the boat yard, expressing concern and wonder that I was doing this myself. They expressed that their winches were expensive and far too complicated for them to service themselves.

Left to right, top to bottom: Dissassembling the winch in a stainless steel pan helps contain stray pieces. Once the entire piece is a apart you a ready to begin cleaning. Using a brush and some deisel to remove all old grease and contaminants. A light wet sanding can get at the toughest dirt. Let all the parts drip dry. Grease the components with a good quality marine grease and a bit of oil as you reassemble.

That is really the root of the problem. They are complex-looking pieces of equipment, and once disassembled seemingly impossible to put back together again. But no, they are not “Humpty Dumpty”, and as there is usually only one way to assemble them, they are in fact quite easy to put back together again. And how nice they sound and feel once cleaned and greased up.

The manufacturer will recommend servicing the winches every couple of months. For the full time sailor, I would certainly agree with this approach, but the weekend sailor, once a year (but not more than every two years) may suffice.

We once purchased an older boat that had done some serious mileage. She also had, as we soon found, a lot of deferred maintenance. This old lady came with a complement of 15 winches. Some big monsters for the headsails, medium ones for the halyards, and some small ones for less important tasks. All of them, except for one which was seized up, spun quite freely but with a harsh rasping sound.

During our first season we admittedly had bigger fish to fry, and deferred the maintenance on the winches. A badly leaking shaft seal, engine problems, pumps to be replaced, faulty electronics, you name it. However, that fall we started opening them up two at a time – and you will see that this will be our first tip. What we saw inside was both sad and appalling. It looked like we had plenty of sand from the Sahara , but nary a drop of lubricant inside them. Sand is, as you can imagine, quite abrasive and the insides of our winches were sadly quite worn. The gears, the palls, the shafts were all abraded to one degree or another, and there was rust and corrosion everywhere. But no longer!

So what is the big deal? As I mentioned I will always work on my winches in pairs – unless I am in the middle of doing a batch and am really sure of what goes where. Why do I do this? Because, I have the same fear as everyone else of putting a bit in the wrong place, or upside down. If I have an assembled winch sitting there, it is a template for the one I have in bits. As special added assurance, I ask my wife Daria to take digital photos of my winch as I take it apart to make sure I have a record of ‘how it was’. I have also downloaded the assembly instructions from the manufacturers’ websites.  So armed, I am confident, at least somewhat, of being able to grease and reassemble the winch.

The servicing part is really quite simple on most days. I figure about three hours for me to service a large wench – oops, I meant a large winch - and less for a smaller one if they are really dirty. This way three are a day’s work. And quite exhausting, though satisfying I might add.

First you have to remove the winch from where it lives. Usually this can be done in one piece. You will need a screw driver and some Allen keys (hex keys) to do this for most models. I then place the winch in a bucket to carry it to where I am working. This is not only a handy means of transport, but also useful should a piece fall out while underway.

The next step is to disassemble the winch. I do this in a large stainless steel pan I found in a dumpster several years ago. For some winches you may require a mallet and punch to push out a pin. (Do not use a lump hammer as you will most assuredly damage something with the hard blows.) Most often all you will need now is your Allen keys. Be careful when you remove the palls (the little ratchet thingies). They have a little stainless steel spring in the middle that just loves to jump away. Because of this tendency, I would strongly advise going out and purchasing a set of palls & springs, which are readily available at major chandleries.

Once I have everything disassembled, I wash it all thoroughly in some diesel, which we happen to have around. It is a light oil that will dissolve all the old grease. A small brass wire brush and an old tooth brush are also needed. Do not use a steel wire brush as the bristles will rust if pieces wind up in the mechanism. Also do not use a tooth brush with rubber on the handle as this will dissolve. You can get suitable brushes at most marine or better hardware stores – and they do not cost a lot. We have also found them at our local dollar store. Be careful to get all the old grease out of the bearings while you do this.

Once it is all scrubbed, I lay all the gears and other bits out on a clean paper towel to drip dry – like drying dishes. The individual parts may need to be wiped off as well. You do want to get the diesel (or other oil solvent) off as best as possible.

Now comes the re-assembly. You will need some good quality marine (winch) grease as well as some appropriate oil. Give the gears some grease prior to assembling them, making sure you have some grease everywhere. I also rub some grease on all the larger surfaces to protect them from the elements at this time. The bearings need to be well packed, as they do much of the work. There is no need to put in great gobs of grease, as this just makes a mess and makes for more work with the next cleaning.

The hardest part is perhaps putting the palls back in place – those are the little things that click when you rotate the winch clockwise. This is where a kit of spares comes in very handy.  Lewmar sells plastic baggies with spare palls and springs – and you always find the one you lost after using a new one in its place. I give the palls a dab of grease plus some oil prior to re-assembly. To reassemble them, position the little spring in its groove, with the circular part lined up with the pall. Put the circular part of the pall into the corresponding cutout in the gear until stopped by the spring. At this time, the groove the spring rests in should be partially hidden. With a flat screw driver gently push the spring into position while maintaining some pressure on the pall. If everything stays put, it will easily now drop into place. If you do several winches you will surely get the hang of this.

Now, put the rest together, and you are done!  Well, almost. You still have to get them back on the boat in their place.  Piece of cake! And your boat will love you for your effort. I love playing with my wenches (blast – winches) when they rotate smoothly.

So in our area, 15 winches at 4 hours each total with removal and reinstallation would have cost us over $5000 to service.  Instead, I am intimate with our winches, I know they were serviced well, and I can always fix things when they fall apart.  It cost about $20 in grease, $40 in spare parts (which I have yet to use), and gave me a great reason to spend hours in the fresh air in the garage all fall and winter.  And the wench didn’t even mind!

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