Tuesday, December 20, 2016

A Tale of Two Projects - part 2

Bob's project for the day was working on our windlass that finally arrived, mostly in one piece. When we ordered it from Miami we were told they had 3 in stock. Perhaps they have a different definition of "in stock" because it took almost 2 weeks just to get to the distributor. Nonetheless, we have it now, and Bob has been working on getting it installed.
The windlass has arrived



He has been up in the bow of the boat, drilling holes (because, of course the holes from the previous windlass do not line up) and fitting the windlass and the new motor into it's new home.
Mostly in one piece

He gets it all ready and discovers that the studs that attach the windlass on the deck to the motor below are not long enough to go through our deck at that point. The good news is that the deck is stout and will withstand a lot of pressure - but that is mitigated by the fact that it is not allowing our windlass to be installed.

The installation manual says that if you want longer posts you can have them installed by the dealer. Having waited over 2 weeks to get the windlass we are not interested in packaging it up and sending it back to get the new posts refitted.

Also in the manual is the exploded diagram showing how to take the windlass apart to service the various parts. Bob began to dismantle the windlass to get to the posts.

The "amusing" part of the dismantling was the number of bolt that were used to hold it together. There were 8 bolts in the top section alone, and Bob had to use 7 different sizes of allen wrenches to remove them. Each bolt was completely different from its neighboring bolt and it was a guessing game as to which wrench would fit it.

Bob got the entire top section broken apart just to reach the posts. The very last section would not come apart. A quick internet search gave us the number for tech support for the windlass. (Luckily we were in Puerto Rico and US calls are free on our AT&T phone). A half hour later we got a calls all back with an answer- "brute force".

Bob said- "I thought of that, but I was not willing to put our new windlass at risk by using that method"

Brute force won, the posts removed.

The irony of it all is that the entire top of the windlass that we took apart did not need to be taken apart to get to the posts. At least we know the windlass better for servicing or possible future repairs (shudder).

Top part reassembled, most of the parts put back.
Extra part discovered.
Top part taken apart again.
Extra part put back in.
Top successfully back together.
Extra parts are never good when putting things back together.

Now the posts are out and need to be replaced.

Phone calls to hardware stores on three different islands, and two different countries to see who has the posts.
The answer - no one.
The best solution is to buy some bolts, cut off the heads and re-mill the ends to accept the nuts and washers.

Easy - huh?

And then there is the matter of getting to the hardware store when we can't raise our anchor with the windlass,  so we have to find a hardware store near a mooring ball so that we can dinghy to it.

Did I mention that the winds are predicted to be raging on the days we want to get this done?

So- now the windlass waits again.
And we move on to other projects.

Ah- the simple life.

We love to hear your comments.

Tammy Swart said...

Wow... it's tough to be so dependent upon this THINGS! Hunker down... at least you're not walking to your cubicle, in snow, uphill, both ways... like the rest of the world! See you soon (as these winds die down)!

Sarah said...

Looking forward to it!