Secondary winches

[Ziggy]

I am contemplating installing a pair of secondary winches. I don't have a spinnaker, but I they could be useful in clearing primary winch overrides (very rare but stuff happens), helping my wife furl the genoa in a strong breeze, tensioning the boom brake (don't have one yet, but I'm thinking about it), and tensioning the runners on the very very rare occasions when I have the inner forestay & storm sail up. On the other hand, I would loose a very comfy sitting spot on the cockit coamings. I'm interested in others' opinions about general utility of secondaries.

[By Invitation]

I highly recommend secondaries. Last summer one of my primary 52's stopped working properly while on a long sail. It was real nice to just switch to the secondary and keep sailing. It also gave me plenty of time to service the primary without being in any kind of a rush. If we had been in severe weather without a secondary when this happened I don't know what I would have done.

[Ziggy]

Originally Posted by By Invitation

Last summer one of my primary 52's stopped working properly while on a long sail.

Just curious--what was the problem with your primary?

[Hud3]

I installed a pair of secondary winches to handle the cruising spinnaker sheets. I've found that I use them a lot for the staysail and genoa furlers as well. Very handy!

[By Invitation]

"Just curious--what was the problem with your primary?"

The starboard winch failed to hold the sheet tension once and since then has not been used. I suspect the pawls are stuck somehow but I have not removed the winch yet to check it out. The boat is now back at home and inside her house and I plan to work on both 52's to get them back to 100%. I have a list of items I am going to be working on this year and the winch is not a big concern at this time since I know it is a relatively simple repair. The winch failure was at the end of a great and long season of sailing.

[Weyalan]

I like having secondary winches. We use them for spinnakers, of course, but also for reaching when we attached an outboard sheet that runs through either our outboard genoa car or, more often, through the (brace) block on the outboard edge of the deck... this allows us to open the slot by using an outboard sheet, on the secondary winch, but still have the regular inboard sheet on the primary winch.

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Ziggy

On the other hand, I would loose a very comfy sitting spot on the cockit coamings. I'm interested in others' opinions about general utility of secondaries.

What is the boat?

Post a picture, maybe there are good alternate locations. Our primaries and secondaries are one after the other on the cockpit rails.

With proper blocks you might be able to set them on the edge of the coach roof.

[Ziggy]

Dan,

The boat is Contessa 32. The coach roof is pretty much taken up by the main and genoa halyard winches. While there is room on the cockpit coamings for the secondaries, the space becomes progressively narrower as you move aft so there's not much room to choose from. I couldn't find a good picture of the cockpit of my boat, but here's a shot of another Co32 where you can see the winches: http://www.jeremyrogers.co.uk/imageu...007%20copy.jpg

As you can see, a svelte butt can just about squeeze between the two winches. Mine would be a tight fit.

[Ex-Calif]

That's basically our exact setup. The only difference is we have one central winch on the coachroof that is shared for halyards etc...