Tag Archives: winch

More Wiring

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Alice with the remote control for the Superwinch

Alice shows off the Superwinch remote control, which has been connected to the plug-in, as it will be when the system is operational.

Winch remote plug-in box

A close-up view of the plug-in for the Superwinch remote control, mounted in the junction box on the cabin, and with the wiring installed that connects it to the solenoid.

Solenoid with all wiring connected

Another view of the solenoid, now with all the wiring connected…on the left, the wires lead to the battery, in the center to the remote control, and on the right to the winch motor.

Great weather today! Blue skies and sun all morning gave us perfect weather for a walk to Mary Ann’s Kitchen to have breakfast with Ann and Bob. We think Mary Ann’s is one of the best places in Anacortes for breakfast and lunch…the food is fresh, prepared like home-cooked, and they have great service!

Clouds rolled in for the afternoon, with rain in the forecast for tomorrow. So, we took advantage of the dry weather today to paint the junction box for the winch remote plug-in, mount the box on the cabin, and complete the wiring from the solenoid to the plug-in.

Next we’ll be working on the wiring for a system on/off switch and for connecting the battery charger.

Wiring and Teak

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Superwinch Battery

The Superwinch battery is stored inside a locker on our flybridge, and in a protective box that is tied down.

Solenoid with battery and winch wires attached

The Superwinch solenoid now has wires on the left side that connect to the battery…the wires on the right are the ones that connect to the winch.

Swimstep and boarding ladder before.

Teak swimstep and boarding ladder before cleaning. The boarding ladder is stored in a folded position, on the port side of our stern.

Swimstep and boarding ladder after.

Teak swimstep and boarding ladder after cleaning.

Connecting the battery and remote control to the solenoid is the next step of installing the Superwinch. We found a place to store the winch battery in the locker on the starboard forward end of the flybridge, then ran heavy battery cables inside the side wall of the flybridge to connect the battery to the solenoid.

Wiring the remote control to the solenoid required a little more effort. First we had to decide where to locate the plug-in for the remote so that the 10-foot cord will reach the places we want to be when we are using it. The best place seems to be near the base of the mast, close to where the dinghy is stored on the boat deck. However, we couldn’t find a convenient place where we could recess the plug-in connection. After many rejected ideas, we settled on buying a weather-tight electrical junction box that will be mounted near the stairs to the flybridge and painted white to match the cabin.

We had a dry day on Monday, so I was able to clean up the teak on the swim step and boarding ladder, using the same technique and product that I used on the teak decking a few days ago (see June 3 post). After some serious scrubbing, the dirty teak cleaned up pretty good and it was so nice to see the warm teak color return.

Webasto Repair, Winch Replacement

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Webasto Expansion Tank

A new cap on the Webasto expansion tank fixed most of the problems of leaking coolant.

Manual winch on boom for hoisting and lowering dinghy

The self-tailing manual winch mounted on the boom has been used for hoisting and lowering our dinghy.

Boom with mounted manual winch

Jim removed this manual winch from our boom, and will be installing the new electric winch in its place.

Yea! We are able to use the Webasto heater again. Heat is a good thing! But when the system got hot yesterday, some of the coolant leaked. Turns out that the pressure relief cap on the expansion tank has worn, so we replaced it with a new cap. That helped the bulk of the leaking, but today we noticed that there is still a bit of coolant overflow, which we will have to address by adding an overflow reservoir…another project!

The first step in installing the new electric winch on our boom is removing the existing manual winch. Jim got the manual winch off yesterday afternoon, but work time was cut short today due to rain. We’ll resume this project when we have a bit of dry weather.

Superwinch arrives!

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Jim unpacking the Superwinch and battery charger

Jim unpacking the Superwinch and battery charger

We now have gathered all the piece parts for replacing our manual dinghy-lifting winch with a new electric version. The Superwinch and battery charger that we ordered from Amazon arrived this week, and Jim bought the Optima battery at a local Bend auto supply store.

Superwinch package

Superwinch package

We hooked up everything in our garage in a test mode to check that it works. It does! Now we can pack it up to take it to the boat next week when we head up to Anacortes. After we get settled on the boat, we will tackle the actual project of installing the new winch system.

Superwinch and charger

Superwinch and charger

Testing the Superwinch, battery, and battery charger

Testing the Superwinch, battery, and battery charger

Early season preparations

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Still working on selecting and styling a WordPress theme for this blog…but think I’m getting closer! I haven’t moved last year’s blog entries from blogger.com yet, but that’s on my list to do soon.

Phoenix is scheduled to be hauled out in Anacortes within the next couple of weeks. The boatyard people at Marine Servicenter have hauled our boat for us in years past and taken good care of her, so we have asked them to come get our boat from our slip at Anacortes Marina and haul her out for us while we are at home in Bend. It’s great that they’ll do that for us! They will put on a fresh coat of bottom paint, replace zincs and clean up the underwater metal…then they will return Phoenix to our slip. We plan to travel to Anacortes in about 3 weeks, and it will be nice to have that work done when we get there.

For now, we are focusing on getting house projects wrapped up and organizing the stuff we want to bring with us for the summer. It’s always a challenge! We’re also beginning on our first boat project…or at least gathering up the piece parts. We’ve decided it’s time to replace our hand-cranking operation for launching and hauling our dinghy on and off the aft deck. The manual winch is just getting to be too much! Jim has been researching electric winches that will fit on our boom, and has settled on a Superwinch Terra 25-SR that we can order from Amazon. He plans to set up the system to run on an Optima D34 55A battery that will be charged by a Noco Genius 10A marine battery charger.