Chain Stripper Modification

Bent stripper compared to new stripper

Last year I had a guest on board who was trying to be helpful and undertake some of the chores on the boat. He was going through the anchoring process and while anchoring, I (he) found a deficiency in my capstan while easing out chain as one puts on the snubber.
Normally, when bringing in the chain with the capstan, a stripper is in place to ensure the chain comes off the capstan and goes down the Hawse pipe. Otherwise, it can get caught in the gypsy (wildcat in the USA) and wind up the chain around itself. Easing chain out, say when anchoring, the weight of the chain is usually sufficient to take the chain of the capstan gypsy. But in my case, my guest was not aware of the potential issue and as he eased the chain out while holding tension on the snubber line, the chain stayed in the gypsy and bent the chain stripper on the opposing side. You can see the bent stainless stripper above.

Plastic compared to SS

We were in the middle of "nowhere" and there was no way I could straighten that stainless. So what to do? I used one of my wife's "polyplastic" chopping boards and cut it up to make a plastic, but temporary chain stripper. While getting everything ready, including a cardboard template, I decided to design it so it was able to strip the chain whether it was coming in, or going out. I used both hacksaw and Dremel for fashioning the plastic stripper and the thing worked so well, it stayed on for the whole cruising season (6 months). I improved the cardboard cut out a little and had a piece of 6mm stainless laser cut when I went home.

Plastic stripper in place

New SS stripper to replace plastic in place

Selden Reversible Winch

Overall Winner of the DAME Award 2010 is the Seldén Reversible Winch of Seldén Mast AB. The Jury felt that this winch would have the largest impact on the leisure marine industry and would appear on many sailing boats in the future.

The key to why this particular reversible winch won such an award from 132 entered products from 19 countries is in its innovative safety. By backing the line off the winch instead of easing it by hand, there is greater safety for the operator. 
 
There are several models featuring the new technology, the R30, R40, R46, R52, and this patented new feature gives a new dimension to the concept of winches.

So how does it work?
The winches are of self tailing type with two gears forward. You start winching clock wise on the fast gear, shift down to low gear by rotating the winch handle anti clock wise. So far, exactly as usual.

The ingenious feature with the new Seldén winches is that you can let the rope out by reversing the winch drum. The purpose made winch handle has a knob which is pushed down with your thumb to prepare the winch for reverse drive.

The winch handle is then rotated clock wise and the rope is eased out. The rope remains in the self tailing jaws all the time which means it’s a one hand operation to trim the sheet, the halyard or the windward guy.

For the cruising sailor, and especially if you have less experienced people on board, the one handed operation means safety – no hands are even close to the drum when easing out the rope.

In rough conditions you can hold on with your free hand. Single handed sailors can steer and trim at the same time