Windlass handle

Windlass handle

I (Jon) finished these jobs variously on March 10th, Apr. 20th and Apr. 25th.

Somewhere across the Pacific the handle used to crank up the anchor windlass broke about 3 inches from the bottom.

Multiple welding shops here in Australia said they didn’t want to bother. Another wanted to charge me $75 just to weld the 3 inch piece back on. Finally I found a shop willing to do it for a reasonable amount $20.

This worked great for two months at which point the handle broke again, this time one inch further up, 4 inches from the bottom.

At this point, I was beyond extreme frustration levels. Syzygy was headed to Bundaberg after this and it was unfortunately most reasonable to use the welder right next to the marina. This meant I was probably overcharged even with respect to Australia’s over-inflated prices. He charged me $120 to weld on a new 6 – inch stainless bar onto the cylindrical pipe forming the entire handle. (this is, of course, what Matt said I should do originally, but I tried to get away with something cheaper.) This stainless bar was supposed to be exactly like the old one. The next time we went to go use the handle to crank up the anchor, Justin finds that the stainless bar that was welded on was not exactly the same, it was nearly twice as wide. And it didn’t fit into the slot made for the handle on the anchor windlass.

So a week later while sailing along at 2.5 knots on completely flat seas, I pulled out the grinder and took off enough so that it fit.

Done.