Guide to servicing

Winches carry huge loads, and if the internal mechanism doesn’t work properly, the winch can spin and pass these loads straight through the handle, which can be enough to break an arm. Keeping your winches running smoothly is a safety-critical job, as well making sail-handling that much easier. The good news is that modern winches are evolving to make maintenance easier and reduce the time required for the annual service. Once you know what you’re doing, it shouldn’t take more than an hour to an hour-and-a-half to service a winch. That’s a morning’s work for two of you on board, and is worth doing at the end of the season before leaving the boat on the hard for the winter.

We went along to Harken’s customer service centre in Lymington, Hampshire, where senior technical service advisor Alun Hughes took us through the finer points of servicing a winch.

Servicing on a work bench is the best place to do it, and many winches can be unbolted from the deck easily. If you do it in situ, be careful not to lose any pawls, springs, and bearing