Put It In/Jerk It Out- Project Windlass

The ability to admit to my own screw-ups on this blog is one of the core tenants of my “About this Blog” page….as I want you to learn from my mistakes so you don’t make them yourself.  I don’t want to screw things up, but when I do in relationship to boat experience, it’s ok to share it so you can learn too!  So dive into this post for a quick look at what I did wrong and how it got fixed. 

First…..nope- this post isn’t about some funky sex stuff, like the title might make it sound like, it’s about my Windlass shaft (that’s not a kinky thing either!! he he).  See, once I got the upper and lower body of the Windlass completely on and bolted, glued and sealed- the shaft would NOT go through.  WHY NOT?  I’m not sure except there had to be some sort of problem created when I widened the hole and forced the Windlass bodies to fit.  Don’t FORCE your Windlass body to fit, you’ll have the same thing happen- take a look:

After working for hours to get the shaft to go through and finally realizing it wasn’t going to happen, I was pretty frustrated and in deplorable shape because of the heat.  I considered starting to drink, but it was too early in the afternoon.  I also knew I needed someone with more experience, so I phoned a friend.  Francisco Cedillo runs Cedillo Marine and has helped me with several critical junctures on two different sailboats.  He’s willing to help even when busy and has experience that runs the gamut of critical marine knowledge.  On this day, he was available and in good spirits, quickly assuring me that he could help.  He got right into the chain locker….but had to break the news to me that we would have to take OUT the entire  Windlass build in order to fix what I had screwed up.  In the hot afternoon sun, this news nearly broke me.  But I rallied and the two of us took out the entire Windlass, down to the caulking.  Once the hardware was stripped, we took power tools to the windlass hole again, enlarging it further till the shaft fit.  Then we re-installed all the windlass hardware, AGAIN.  Here’s Francisco in the chain locker, shaft finally fitting through the Windlass:

Yep, this is what my work area looked like on this day.  Next post, I’ll go through the final drum install and first powering of the Windlass.  Needless to say….after the photo above was taken, I was in the final stage of Windlass install and the worst was over.

Here’s links to my previous posts about this install:

http://livefree2travelslow.com/2018/10/12/project-windlass-for-dummies-like-me/

http://livefree2travelslow.com/2018/10/15/windlass-for-dummies-not-such-a-simple-installation/

http://livefree2travelslow.com/2018/10/17/project-windlass-doing-the-work/