You can get a winch service kit from Lewmar/Defender/West Marine with grease,
pawls, springs, etc for a few bucks.
Clean them up, replace any bad springs/pawls, light oil on the pawls, grease
(from kit) on spindles/teeth (?), reassemble and you will be likely as good as
new. There are Lewmar assembly diagrams on-line but if you are careful not to
lose any parts AND take one winch apart at a time so the other is there for a
guide, and you should be fine. Its one of those dirty jobs but simple enough to
do. Once you have done one, the next is much faster plus you don't need any
special tools.
Charlie NelsonWater Phantom
On Tuesday, September 12, 2023, 07:20:44 PM EDT, Jeffrey A. Laman via
CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote:
Mike and others who have provided valuable input,
This information on electric is very useful. I wasn't intending to purchase
electric in any case due to cost.
I went to boat this afternoon. Ashamed to say I did not even know what size
the existing winches are. They are Lewmar/England 42ST, likely original to
boat, therefore 42 years old. From what I am hearing from everyone, a Lewmar
42ST should be adequate for a C&C34. But man, even in 12 knts wind it takes
the full strength of two crew to get the last 2 feet in. I was sensing that
the winch handle was about to break.
After reading more this afternoon, I am sure the winches are way past due for
servicing. Lewmar recommends 2 to 3 times a season! This may be part, if not
all, of the problem. I suspect the winches were disassembled and greased about
10 to 12 years ago. Before that, who knows.
Is a set of 42 year old winches worth disassembling, cleaning, greasing, and
reassembling? Will this result in a significant improvement? What parts of
the winch typically need to be replaced and can those Lewmar parts be obtained
for such an old winch?
Thanks again for all the very helpful advice on winch sizes.
Jeff Laman1981 C&C34 HarmonyLudington, MI
From: Hoyt, Mike via CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2023 2:43 PM
To: 'Stus-List' <cnc-list@cnc-list.com>
Cc: Hoyt, Mike <mike.h...@impgroup.com>
Subject: Stus-List Electric Winches - Winch Size for C&C34
Persistence came to us with Electric Lewmar 43ST winches for the primaries.
There were no secondaries. For cruising ease the primaries had been located
where secondaries normally would be and the mounting locations for the original
primaries were faired and painted over. The second set of manual Lewmar 43ST
winches were mounted on the cabin top for use as halyard winches. THIS WAS WAY
OVERKILL!
ST43 as halyard winches way larger than necessary. Jib trimmers facing
backward to trim genoa was awkward to say the least. So we moved the cabin top
Lewmar 43ST back to the original primary location and replaced cabin top
halyard winches with Lewmar 30ST (Ocean series I believe)
This still left us with electric Lewmar 43 ST. First of all an electric winch
can be nasty. An inexperienced trimmer can damage the headsail using one. We
always had the switches turned off and used as a manual winch. Secondly these
were AWFUL to maintain. To service the winches the motor has to be dropped
from beneath before the drums can come off to clean and lubricate the gears,
pawls, etc … Due to this and due to the lack of accessibility from beneath to
do this these winches were rarely serviced and never properly. When running
the spinnaker on these secondaries they were stiff and made spin handling more
problematic than it should be (due to the lack of east servicing).
In the end we traded these to someone with a pilothouse 44 foot boat for a set
of new Lewmar 40 ST that are far superior for our purposes. On top of the ease
of servicing and better sizing for the boat removing the motors took away a LOT
of unnecessary weight
Just a story I thought I would share
We are very happy with all of our Lewmar winches BTW
Mike Hoyt
Persistence
Halifax, NS
From: nausetbeach--- via CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2023 3:23 PM
To: 'Stus-List' <cnc-list@cnc-list.com>
Cc: nausetbe...@optonline.net
Subject: Stus-List Re: Winch Size for C&C34
Some other thoughts: For whatever you decide, believe both WM and Defender have
BOGO days on winches during the year which could help reduce the wallet pain.
Electric winches are more than a little $ more. Have heard / read good things
about
Some other thoughts:
For whatever you decide, believe both WM and Defender have BOGO days on winches
during the year which could help reduce the wallet pain.
Electric winches are more than a little $ more. Have heard / read good things
about the “eWincher” as a viable alternative for people who do not want to make
the investment in electric winches.
Brian
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