Yes, but.

The difference in attitudes is why we used all Harken winches when we
refit Swee****er in '94-'95 -- much better pre-sale service. You
haven't mentioned their AutoCad drawings and other design tools....

However, in use, the brand new Harkens required more frequent
maintenance and always felt rougher than the 12 year old Lewmars that
came with the boat.

And, our one electric winch, on the main halyard, failed twice, and
Harken made us pay for the new parts both times, even though it was
two sizes above their recommendation, and both failures were within
warranty. Unfortunately, suing a Wisconsin corporation from
Massachusetts for $1,200 is a losing proposition.

So, it's no more Harken winches for us, although their blocks are
still hands down best. (For those who understand that Fintry is not
likely to have any halyard winches, I'll point out that she will have
two 55s for docking.)

Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com



Glenn Ashmore wrote in message news:htyib.74528$sp2.3442@lakeread04...
Truelove39 wrote:

Superlocks rule!

John

I thought so too until I really started looking into the choices. Now I
am not so sure. Lewmar seems to have gone through some changes in the
past couple of years that have not had a good effect on their quality of
product or support.

In my recent experience Lewmar preferrs to go after the big production
deals and will spend little effort on individuals. I walked into their
booth at Annapolis and presented my bill of materials (about $25K in
winches and hardware). They gave me a 2 minute tour and couldn't wait
to return to gabbing with each other. Took the same list into the
Harken booth and spent 2 hours with Peter Harken and Neil Harvy going
over the whole sail plan and deck layout in detail. Same with maritime
Trading. They spent an hour with me selecting Spinlock clutches.