Gogarty wrote:

Don't know about others but ours is a Lewmar Concept 1 gypsy and captstan with
dual station/dual direction switches. The switch wiring is abominable. It is
very small guage and not tinned and handles very low current to a solenoid
that does the heavy-duty switching. The low-current wiring rapidly turns to
red dust and the switches regularly fail. Put in decent wiring, you say. The
existing wiring is integral into the switch. All I can do is keep peeling back
to bright copper and splice yet again. But I am running out of space. I'll
think of something.

Sorry to hear about your experience with the Lewmar. I have a Concept
(forget the #) windlass on my boat and have had good service from it
for 7+ years. Lewmar foot switches on the deck forward and the supplied
Lewmar 'remote' toggle switch in the cockpit.

Regarding your corrosion problem: On my boat, the connections (soldered
as I recall) for the deck switches are belowdecks (nominally dry) and
are protected with sealant (coax seal or 3M splicing compound and heat
shrink). The cockpit toggle switch is still going strong in spite of
being exposed to the inside of a locker which is usually piled with
damp and salty lines- corrosion heaven. Again, the connections (push-on
spades) are properly protected with sealant and heat shrink. The toggle
switch is a simple on-off-on momentary SPDT switch which can be
replaced with an off-the-shelf unit from any good electronics supplier.
As you say, it carries little current, so it's not a critical item. The
rubber switch covers in the foot switches seem to be holding up, but
are an obvious leak threat.

So far, using tinned (marine-grade) wiring and proper sealing of inline
connections seems to be doing the trick for me. Most of my belowdecks
branch connections (tapping into the light circuit, etc) are made via
terminal blocks, so it's easy to keep an eye on what's happening, and
troubleshoot as well.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed about the motor after your experience.
So far, the windlass has been the only Lewmar product on the boat that
hasn't turned to rubbish. Traveller and 'racing' blocks are a witches'
brew of aluminum and various tiny stainless setscrews which are totally
unsuited to marine use. No more Lewmar junk for me...except for that
great windlass!

John