Armond Perretta wrote:
Rick & Linda Bernard wrote:

... I have never heard anyone say, "Geez this winch
is too powerful."


Nor have I. I have, however, heard several people say: "Geez, this winch is
too expensive."

Tell me about it!!

While on the subject what do you guys feel is the maximum force you can
put on a winch handle? The "generally accepted" formula for
determining winch ratio is (SA*6)/35 assuming 35 pounds being the
maximum force. With a 500 sq.ft. foretriangle that works out to 86:1.
That is a $5,000 winch!!! A 64 cost about $3500 which is the limit of
my buget but the handle force would be 48 lb.

I'm thinking I may just head up a little, trim and fall off and save
$3-4K. :-)

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 09:03:05 -0400, Glenn Ashmore
wrote:

While on the subject what do you guys feel is the maximum force you can
put on a winch handle? The "generally accepted" formula for
determining winch ratio is (SA*6)/35 assuming 35 pounds being the
maximum force. With a 500 sq.ft. foretriangle that works out to 86:1.
That is a $5,000 winch!!! A 64 cost about $3500 which is the limit of
my buget but the handle force would be 48 lb.

Actually, on most boats I've sailed on, this force depends on how much
in-the-way the stupid cables the idiot boat manufacturers spent so
much money putting DIRECTLY in the path of the revolving winch handle.
I think they work very hard to make sure no winch handle over 6" has a
clear, unobstructed turning circle without banging into "something".

Maybe they're trying to make it hard for us to crank too hard on the
cheap winch or the flimsy way they're mounted to the think
fiberglass....??

I'm thinking I may just head up a little, trim and fall off and save
$3-4K. :-)

What?! Aren't all the lines SUPPOSED to creak ominously while you're
cranking as hard as you can pull?....(c;



Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?

Glenn Ashmore wrote:
Armond Perretta wrote:
Rick & Linda Bernard wrote:

... I have never heard anyone say, "Geez this winch
is too powerful."

Nor have I. I have, however, heard several people say: "Geez,
this winch is too expensive."

While on the subject what do you guys feel is the maximum force you
can put on a winch handle? The "generally accepted" formula for
determining winch ratio is (SA*6)/35 assuming 35 pounds being the
maximum force ...

I don't know your source for this, Glenn, but I have pretty much always
heard the figure of 50 pounds quoted. Then you do the ratio math from
there.

Without looking it up I think Wally Ross has some tables for this (my
sailing books are still in boxes 3 moths after the move to a new house).

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://kerrydeare.tripod.com

Armond Perretta wrote:

I don't know your source for this, Glenn, but I have pretty much
always heard the figure of 50 pounds quoted. Then you do the ratio
math from there.

Without looking it up I think Wally Ross has some tables for this (my
sailing books are still in boxes 3 moths after the move to a new
house).


The 35 comes from Brion Toss's book and a couple of articles I found on
the Harkne and Lewmar sites on sizing winches. I thought it was a bit
low myself. That's why I asked. Brion is a big Harken booster and
probably got that number from them but they are out to sell winches so I
guess you need to take their recommendations with a grain of salt. :-)

I believe I am going with Harken as I already have a Harken 44 electric
for the halyards and reefing lines. My choices therefore are between a
56 at about $2600 each and 55 lbs of force and a 64 at $3600 each and 45
lbs force.

The pressure is really on now and the boat bucks are just flying out of
my wallet. Harken usually raises prices in November so I need to make a
decision by the time I leave the Annapolis show.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

Several thoughts:

I've never heard your "six times the sail area" formula. The usual
number is to calculate sheet force as .004 x sail area (sq ft) x wind
speed squared (is that square knots?) Your formula gives the same load
as the standard at around 39 knots, but the load at 39 knots is four
times that at 20 knots, and you will certainly have changed headsails
by then, probably twice.

References:
Harken catalogs for at least the last ten years
Oceanography and Seamanship, Van Dorn, Cornell Maritime Press (the
best not too technical text on its subjects by far -- you should add
it to your list)
Skenes Elements of Yacht Design, Kinney, Dodd Mead
also Marchaj, Henderson, and others.

We had Harken 980s (80:1) and Lewmar 65s in the cockpit on Swee****er
and were probably overwinched there. We added the Harkens after
sailing her in the summer of 1994 with old sheets, old sails, and
winches that hadn't been maintained in years. The rebuilt Lewmars
were fine.

Her foretriangle was 850 sq ft (100%) and we usually used an 1100
square foot Spectra genoa on a roller. For passages in windy areas
(the Tasman, etc.) we switched to a Yankee with a very high clew and a
forestaysail on the removable stay. I should add that both of us were
(and still are) 50-something and in the sort of reasonable condition
you get into when you're living on a boat, but not exceptional in any
way.

Remember that you're not racing -- race boat winches are sized to
bring a big genoa in fast when tacking, then do it again and again
without taxing the gorillas -- crusing winches should make it
reasonably easy to bring the sail in, but you can always luff up a
bit.

I think you'll be perfectly happy with 56s, possibly less. You'll find
65s too big (yes, winches can be too big, as they are slower) --
remember Swee****er came with 65s and her foretriangle is 70% bigger
than yours.

And by the way, this assumes you hang one sail up there. You call her
a "cutter" -- if you're never going to hang a single big genoa, then
all these numbers are too high.

As for Harken, they may have changed designs since we bought ours new
in 1995, but the ones we had were much less satisfactory than the 1982
Lewmars that came with the boat (we put new pawls, pawl springs, and
some bearings in the Lewmars). The Harkens required more frequent
cleaning and felt less efficent.

We put an electric Harken 53 on the main halyard (versus Harken's
recommendation of a 48) and the drive gear broke twice -- once in the
Galapagos and once off Malta. Although both were within the three
year warranty period, I paid $500 for each fix. Fortunately it still
worked in armstrong mode.

So, while I wouldn't use any other brand of blocks, and I love their
ball top winch handles, any future winches I buy will not be Harken (I
bought two Lewmar 65s, well used, but nice, at the Beaulieu Boat
Jumble (read "flea market") for Fintry for £400 each). We'll use them
for flag halyards and docking.

Jim Woodward
www.mvfintry.com

Glenn Ashmore wrote in message ...
Armond Perretta wrote:

I don't know your source for this, Glenn, but I have pretty much
always heard the figure of 50 pounds quoted. Then you do the ratio
math from there.

Without looking it up I think Wally Ross has some tables for this (my
sailing books are still in boxes 3 moths after the move to a new
house).


The 35 comes from Brion Toss's book and a couple of articles I found on
the Harkne and Lewmar sites on sizing winches. I thought it was a bit
low myself. That's why I asked. Brion is a big Harken booster and
probably got that number from them but they are out to sell winches so I
guess you need to take their recommendations with a grain of salt. :-)

I believe I am going with Harken as I already have a Harken 44 electric
for the halyards and reefing lines. My choices therefore are between a
56 at about $2600 each and 55 lbs of force and a 64 at $3600 each and 45
lbs force.

The pressure is really on now and the boat bucks are just flying out of
my wallet. Harken usually raises prices in November so I need to make a
decision by the time I leave the Annapolis show.

Here is where I got the formula on the Harken site. About 2/3 down the
page:
http://www.harken.com/winches/wnchpower.php

It is also in Brion Toss's Riggers Apprentice on page 42. (Almost
verbatim from the harken site.) OTOH, when you look at the tables a 56
or 64 is the recommended size for a 500 sq ft foretriangle.

I wish to heck I knew what a Newton is. All the really authoritative
modern texts are metric!



--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 19:41:47 -0400, Glenn Ashmore
wrote:

Here is where I got the formula on the Harken site. About 2/3 down the
page:
http://www.harken.com/winches/wnchpower.php

It is also in Brion Toss's Riggers Apprentice on page 42. (Almost
verbatim from the harken site.) OTOH, when you look at the tables a 56
or 64 is the recommended size for a 500 sq ft foretriangle.

I wish to heck I knew what a Newton is. All the really authoritative
modern texts are metric!

Hold a good sized apple in your hand: that's a force of 1 newton
you're holding it up with - a little under a quarter pound.

Brian W

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 19:41:47 -0400, Glenn Ashmore
wrote:

I wish to heck I knew what a Newton is. All the really authoritative
modern texts are metric!

It's a brown, square little cake stuffed with Fig guts about 1/2"
thick and cut square on two sides like it's made in one continuous
tube and they slice it ever' so of'n.

They also got 'em in Strawberry, Blueberry an' Raspberry, but I
suspect the Fig ones'll always win out from the traditionalist buyers
who are addicted......and my two parrots.


Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?

"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
...
Here is where I got the formula on the Harken site. About 2/3 down the
page:
http://www.harken.com/winches/wnchpower.php

In this case I think Harken is just off. They use an example of a 300 sq.
ft headsail (nearly the size of the genoa on my last boat, a 30' cutter) and
conclude you need a 50:1 winch. I don't think so. The winch was a 2 speed
32:1 and was fine. Yes, it was a bit of effort in a stiff breeze - but you
could still wind it in.

The usual formula for sheet loads is

F (lbs) = 0.00431 A(sq. ft) V^2 (knots)

There are some frictional losses through sheet blocks but not that much,
perhaps 10%.

I think 56's would be more than fine for your 505 ft foresail. If they are
self tailers, and you use a 2 handled winch handle, they will be a breeze
for smaller crew members.

by the way in case you were not kidding:
1 N = .0981 kg i.e. about 0.1 kg force or about 0.2 lbs


--
Evan Gatehouse

you'll have to rewrite my email address to get to me
ceilydh AT 3web dot net
(fools the spammers)

I agree with Evan -- Harken is way off.

The formula Evan quotes is the same one I quoted above. As I noted,
it's been used by Skene (Kinney), Van Dorn, Henderson, Marchaj, and
many others.

The trouble with the Harken formula is that it doesn't specify a wind
speed. Since sheeting force varies with the square of wind speed,
that's a vital part of the choice of winch size. If you really expect
to carry a full foretriangle at 40 knots, then the Harken formula is
fine. That, however, suggests that at ten knots you'll be grossly
undercanvassed -- that you could carry sixteen times more sail than
you have.

Put another way, the difference between a 56 and a 66 is 18% in power.
Since the sheeting force varies with wind speed squared, a sail that
is easy with a 56 at 20 knots would require a 66 at 21.7 knots. Since
this is a very subtle difference, the only way to do this is for you
(Glenn) to do the math. Look at the rig you'll be carrying at each
wind speed, calculate the sheet loads with the Evan's formula and make
a decision.

Your naval architect can provide a table of her ability to carry sail
at various wind speeds up to bare poles at around sixty knots.
Beware, these are probably high -- my experience with several boats,
including Swee****er (Swan 57 by Sparkman & Stephens) was that we
never carried as much sail as they said we could. We were, of course
cruising shorthanded, not racing.

For my money, they are far better places to put money in a cruising
boat than in big winches. Dee (wife and crew for 37 years) would
agree, and she's the one who has to be perfectly happy reefing,
tacking, whatever, alone at night, in a blow, without waking me.

(I should add, however, that there are limits. The sailor who goes
out with grossly undersized winches and tacks by luffing while
sheeting, risks breaking the winch or ripping it out of the deck in
puffs.)

Jim Woodward
www.mvfintry.com

"Evan Gatehouse" wrote in message ...
"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
...
Here is where I got the formula on the Harken site. About 2/3 down the
page:
http://www.harken.com/winches/wnchpower.php

In this case I think Harken is just off. They use an example of a 300 sq.
ft headsail (nearly the size of the genoa on my last boat, a 30' cutter) and
conclude you need a 50:1 winch. I don't think so. The winch was a 2 speed
32:1 and was fine. Yes, it was a bit of effort in a stiff breeze - but you
could still wind it in.

The usual formula for sheet loads is

F (lbs) = 0.00431 A(sq. ft) V^2 (knots)

There are some frictional losses through sheet blocks but not that much,
perhaps 10%.

I think 56's would be more than fine for your 505 ft foresail. If they are
self tailers, and you use a 2 handled winch handle, they will be a breeze
for smaller crew members.

by the way in case you were not kidding:
1 N = .0981 kg i.e. about 0.1 kg force or about 0.2 lbs