Winches carry huge loads. 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 as 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 and a half to service a winch.
It’s a job worth doing at the end of the season before leaving the boat on the hard for the winter.
What you need for servicing winches
Servicing on a workbench is the best place, and many winches can be unbolted from the deck surprisingly easily.
But if you do it in situ, be careful not to lose small moving parts–pawls, springs, and bearing rings–over the side.
A piece of cloth or card taped to the deck and over the guard rails can help, or cut a hole in the bottom of a cardboard box
