Actually it’s a used winch we bought at a local consignment shop. It was broken and Rich was able to fix it for super cheap. We bought the winch to replace an old Barlow 20 we have for our mainsheet. While the Barlow works just fine, it isn’t a self-tailing winch and it only has one speed. We’d like to replace all of our non-tailers to tailers if we can afford it.
Barient 22-35
The new winch is a Barient 2-speed 22-35. The base of the new self-tailing winch is a little bigger than the old Barlow. By adding a ring of G10 around the old teak piece he was able to widen the winch base. A little faring made it smooth so it looks like one continuous piece. Of course the holes in the cabin top weren’t the same so those had to be filled with epoxy and re-drilled. And a new aluminum backing plate was needed as well.
Rich used butyl tape to seal the winch base to the cabin top. We’ve had good results using the butyl tape for these types of applications.
We’ve used the winch several times since we installed it and it really does make life easier. Trimming the mainsail went from repeatedly cleating the mainsheet to make any small change to simply letting the line in or out and using the self-tailing arm to hold it in place. It may not seem like big deal, but we sail on a river that requires constant tacking so anything that makes it easier is a big improvement.
