![\"VS1000C](\"http:\/\/www.svsunnyspells.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/VS1000C.gif\" "\\"VS1000C")
<\/a>South Pacific VS1000C Windlass<\/p><\/div>During my initial re-fit I fitted a South Pacific<\/a> VS1000C windlass and replaced the anchor(s) and rode. <\/p>\n Having pulled the old anchor up by hand a couple of times I realized that a windlass was an essential, not a nice-to-have. I chose the South Pacific because: <\/p>\n The winch is now just over two years old and, of course, out of warranty. It has seen a fair amount of work during my two passages up the East Coast. We anchored at the islands up north and I guess it’s pulled up the anchor oh, I don’t know, three or four dozen times. I’ve always been pretty careful not to overload the winch, motoring up to the anchor if there was a bit of breeze or only lifting the chain and waiting for the catenary of the rode to pull the boat up if there was little or no wind.<\/p>\n Last year, after returning from Airlie Beach, I noticed the windlass had become sluggish and intermittent. Some times I had to use a winch handle to manually wind a couple of turns before it would re-start. It was fine letting the anchor out, but pulling it up was a problem. The capstan also wobbled a lot under load, indicating that the bearings were loose.<\/p>\n By the time we got to Gabo Island earlier<\/a> this year the windlass was pretty much useless and I knew it was probably overdue for a clean\/service.<\/p>\n It was a pain removing the windlass, because the wiring is carefully concealed under the deck-head in the v-berth, so I had to pull the deck head out to get to the cables. Everything is also hard-wired in the interests of current delivery, so it meant cutting the cables.<\/p>\n Anyway, I brought it home, disassembled the unit, and found that the inside of the electric motor was covered in gold-coloured grease! The grease had migrated from the gearbox down through the top bearing of the electric motor and then covered everything: armature, brushes… The gold colour of the grease was caused by fine bronze dust, a product of the output shaft wearing away the bottom bearing – a simple bronze bush.<\/p>\n I realized that to fix the windlass properly was going to be difficult. At the very least, it would require a new bush to be machined for the output shaft and as there is no space for an oil-seal between the electric motor and the gearbox, the grease is likely to keep soaking into the electric motor.<\/p>\n I’ve now cleaned the gearbox and motor, re-packed the gearbox with marine grease and re-assembled the unit in the hope that I’ll get another 2 years use out of it before throwing it away…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During my initial re-fit I fitted a South Pacific VS1000C windlass and replaced the anchor(s) and rode. Having pulled the old anchor up by hand a couple of times I realized that a windlass was an essential, not a nice-to-have. … Continue reading \n