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Wilbur Hubbard Wilbur Hubbard is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Feb 2007
Posts: 2,869
Default how necessary is a windlass

"Jessica B" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 9 Mar 2011 22:39:40 -0800, Mark Borgerson
wrote:

In article s.com,
says...

"Bruce" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 09 Mar 2011 08:18:02 -0500, Gogarty
wrote:

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 8 Mar 2011 16:37:19 -0500, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:

"Bruce" wrote in message
m...
snip


Willie-boy, I keep telling you and telling you that you exhibit
your
lack of knowledge every time you open your mouth. My mate, the
Australian, is 76 years old and sails a 55 ft Ferro boat with a
mechanical anchor windless and gets along quite well single
handing
it.

Of course, he IS a sailor, not a wantabe.
Cheers,




Nothing looks quite a silly as an old man with skinny arms off of
which
the
skin hangs in folds standing on the bow of an overly large and
cumbersome
yacht pulling on the lever of a creaky old mechanical windlass,
slowly
stroking away with one inch of chain coming in at a pull.

If that isn't a good enough argument for downsizing then nothing
will
convince you.


Just goes to show you how little some people know about boats. People
who sail 50' ferro boats don't have an expensive lever operated
Simpson Lawrence winch. they have a geared two speed, local made,
fisherman windlass. the one with the exposed gears. See
http://motivationdocksupply.com/winc...nd-winches.php for an
example.

Wow! I will recommend those windlasses to my freind with the Endeavour
42.


Well... an Endeavour 42 IS a bit more upmarket then a ferrocement
boat, usually :-)


Those things are so S-L-O-W! (and ugly)

S-L-O-W and ugly are relative. Are you in such a big hurry that the
difference between 4Kt and 6Kt makea a big difference?

Mark Borgerson


I just did a simple calculation... say you wanted to go 1000 miles,
1000m/6mph = 7 days vs. 1000m/4mph = 10 days. This seems like a big
difference to me, but what do I know.



Right you are, Jessica. You sure have a good head on your shoulders (for a
girl, LOL!) Often overlooked is the fact that the longer the voyage takes
the greater the chances of experiencing storm conditions. If you have
already arrived and are safe and secure in port while a slower boat is still
two or three days from arriving that boat could get hit by severe weather in
an exposed environment while the faster boat will not be exposed.

That fact alone does not bode well for unnecessarily slow boats like the old
Colin Archer heavy-displacement slowcoaches (Westsail 32, for example). The
only thing that antique design has going for it is it's slow primarily
because it was built in such a way as to be heavy and deep draft and
short-sticked which allows it to better survive heavy weather. But, it's
really kind of stupid in that the very slowness that allows it to survive
heavy weather makes it that much more likely that it will be caught in heavy
weather.


Wilbur Hubbard