When we arrived at Matagorda city Marina, The crew from Nightingale came over and assisted with the lines, which took quite a bit of patience because I was having a heck of a time backing into the slip I was attempting to get to.
I finally made it, but not before seeing all of the mud churning up from how shallow it was, no wonder why I couldn't rotate into the slip, I was likely plowing some mud with the keel.
After tying up, getting everything in ship shape and checking the water intake strainers for any mud, we were set to relax. Deb fixed dinner and we had a bite to eat and then went up to the bar/restaurant at the Marina for a couple of drinks. While we were there the crew from Nightingale came up and offered us a round of drinks, on them, for coming back and helping them get ungrounded the evening before. I thought it was a really nice gesture, and certainly not the reason we did it, but it was nice either way.
Karen making Coffee
We had a good night sleep, and I must have slept sound because when I got up at about 6:45, I noticed that the shrimp boat that was docked 10 feet off my bow was gone and I hadn't even heard it leave.
We showered, fueled up, restocked a few beverages and were off the dock good and early in hopes that we may be able to make good enough time to make it all the way to Hitchcock.
As we started out into the next open body of water, it became apparent that we were NOT going to be making it all the way to Hitchcock. This whole week had been filled with winds at 20-35 knots and today was no exception. It was slow going slogging into the wind and waves for several hours which put us behind schedule a bit. We decided that the best place to stay was going to be Freeport. If you would like to see some video of the slogging into the wind, go to this link on Youtube for the Video. Link to "Slogging up wind in the open Bay"
Mid afternoon, we happened to notice Nightingale coming up behind us. They were making a few
knots faster than us and we talked on a radio for a while as they were passing. We got some good pictures of their boat and sent them via email. I am hoping they have some good ones of us as well and can send them our way.
They were also staying in Freeport but not at the same Marina. I was concerned about a fixed bridge near the Marina they were staying at so we stayed at Seaside Marina (mainly a large fishing boat Marina for offshore fishing yachts).
At some point during the trip, I decided to troll a lure for a while. I certainly didn't expect we would catch anything on the ICW since I was still rigged up for offshore fishing in deeper water. I figured what the heck and we did troll for a little while but then pulled it back in when coming up on some more barge traffic. What I certainly did NOT want to catch was the prop shaft of a tug boat.
We ended up going through a set of flood control locks on this leg of the trip as well. We didn't have to wait too long, but the water coming down the
Brazo's River East Lock (on the ICW)
river was flowing at a pretty good pace into the ICW and had about a 3-4 knot current. It felt like forever before we made it through that lock at about 1.5-2 knots over the ground. When looking at the water, it looked like we were cruising full speed, looking at the locks we were crawling. We went through the first lock and then had to circle in the river a few times to let some other traffic go through, they were heading West on the ICW and going north up the Brazos so we had to stay on the down current side of the intersection until he passed. Once through, we were able to go through the second flood control lock and continue East on the ICW.
Tonight, I wanted to go out and grab a bite to eat rather than stay on the boat. Last time we were through this Marina about 6 months ago, we stopped and had one of the best burgers ever at a little place called "Castaways" and I was determined to go back to this place. We walked over for dinner and drinks and in a bout of crazy small world stuff, we met some folks there. One of our guests/crew posted on Facebook that we were in Freeport. Someone she went to high school with happened to reply to that post and said, I have 4 crazy aunts that are down there on vacation. Sitting at the table next to us were 4 older women having the time of their life. They were toasting drinks, dancing with each others and other people in the bar and Deb, in only the way Deb can, Goes over and asks if there is any chance they know "So and So". As it turns out, that was his "4 crazy aunts". The night went down hill from there. Deb and Karen joined their table and next thing I know there were trays of shots and drinks, etc going that way.
Jim, Kenny and I had our beers and just watched the girls have a great time. While we were there, there was a gentlemen at the bar that had drank more than he should have to safely drive home. The owner of the bar insisted he not drive. This man was on a motorcycle and very worried about the safety of his bike leaving it out front. The owner helped him wheel the motorcycle into the
bar/resteraunt and then got him a ride home. That, in my book, was one really cool move. I must admit it did allow for one photo of Karen on a Motorcycle :)
So now it was time to head back to the boat. I am not sure what it is about my lovely bride, but when she has a few drinks, you never quite know what she is going to do/say. On this particular day, apparently she thought she should talk in a British accent the rest of the evening. So the whole walk home, she rambled on in a perfect (or maybe it just sounded perfect to me after a few beers) British accent. She even used the English words for things rather than what she may normally say, referring to the bathroom as the Loo and the elevator as the lift. I do have some rather funny video of this, but I decided that I would not post it, but I must admit, I just had some pretty good laughs going through them all again while writing this blog.
So off to sleep for the night and tomorrow we are headed to Hitchcock. That is going to be as far as we can get because the Waterways around Galveston, Houston Ship Channel and the ICW are all closed on the other side of Hitchcock due to the Oil Spill. (At the time we were sailing through (on March 24th) not at the time this posts)
After spending the day holed up awaiting a weather window, we left Sanctuary Costa Grande at sun up.
As we headed out to the ICW from the Sanctuary cut, there were quite a few barges lined up in the ICW heading east into Matagorda bay. We waited for traffic to pass and merged into the line.
The wind was down today to about 10-15 mph out of the north east which we assumed would make the 17 miles across the bay pretty rough taking the waves on the quarter. As we approached the jetties we contacted Nightingale (the other boat that we shared our weather hole with to let him know what kind of weather we were seeing) and let him know the weather was like in the bay.
We were just coming through the jetties so we told him we would contact him in 15 minutes as we were out in it. The good news is that the waves were only about 2-3 feet but they were stacked up right against each other and we were heading into the wind so the spray was constant. We were thankful for the dodger and bimini as we stayed dry and fairly warm.
Here is a nice little video of us sailing in San Antonio Bay the prior day
Barge traffic wasn’t too bad in the bay, and all of the tugs are good about responding on the VHF when you contact them to see which side of them they want to see us pass them on. As we got to about the center of the bay, the waves were starting to jump up to 4 feet and were stacked 3 and 4 in a row. For us this meant that we would go up and down the first 2 and then have the 3rd break over the bow and the 4th just slowed us down a bit. We attempted to call back to Nightingale to let them know since they have a power catamaran that has a fairly low center between the hulls. For him this would have been a bit of a pounding. We were too far away from him so we contacted a tug “Reedemer” that was 8 miles behind us going the opposite way and asked him to hail Nightingale and pass on the report. He did so and we could hear him relay the message. (Mental note, we don’t have as strong of a VHF signal as I want)
We made it across the bay and into the protected waters again and as we were passing up a tug “Janice Roberts” the captain informed us that the Colorado River West Lock was closed until 1900 (7 pm). The problem for us is we were hoping to go another 18 miles past the colorado river for the night, now it looks like we need to take a Plan B that is about 5 miles past the lock. Just over 3 miles from the lock, all of the barge traffic was stopping. We were able to see them stacked up on the AIS. After contacting the lock master, they let us know that we could go through the west lock and down river on the Colorado and take the bypass cut around the east lock. The problem is that cut only has 5 feet of depth and we need 6. So it was time to just bite the bullet and get in line. Looking at the tugs, I counted 16 ahead of us.
We were circling in the ICW trying to determine what we were going to do for the next 4 and half hours and decided that there was no barge traffic coming at us with the locks closed so we would just anchor in the middle. I went to the bow to ready the anchor and heard one of the tug captains talking to another to let him know that we were behind him. Deb was manning the VHF and let them know that we were going to anchor here while we waited on the locks to open and then through in a “unless one of you tug captains would let us tie up to you” We heard one tell us that he wasn’t sure what the company would think of that but he didn’t mind and asked us to just tie up to the first barge in his strung out load. The cleats on these things are about 3 feet across and docking on it is like pulling up to a nice 10 foot deep bulkhead. We stopped right next to him and tied up. He asked us to just make sure we stayed on our vessel which we were glad to do and thankful for the generosity of letting us tie up him rather than anchoring in the middle of the ICW.
So here I am writing a blog while sitting at the nav station while tied up to a barge. I made sure that the company name was not visible in these because this was a really cool thing this guy let us do. As I write this the thunder and lightning is picking up and I am just hoping that the captain of the tug doesn’t call me and ask me to shove off due to my 50 foot lightning rod (mast) tied up to his tug. If he does, I completely understand, but hoping not.
I got a call on the radio from the Tug Captain, he said that he was going to start moving on up the ICW a bit further. We told him we would toss the lines off. I went down below and had she wouldn't start. I couldn't believe it. I called the Captain back and let him know that I was having an issue and working on switching over to an alternate battery. He asked what we drafted, we answered and he said that he would just carry us along for a while and he would be sure that he kept us in water deep enough (not a problem as he needed 4 feet more depth than we needed. But it was really cool of him, he just left us tied on and carried us with him a mile or so while we swapped batteries. We untied while doing about a knot and a half while tied to him.
So it will get a bit more interesting tonight because these tugs in front of me will take a little bit of time to get going through the lock, which means we may not hit it until dark. The place we will stay for the night is about 4 miles past the lock. This delay certainly impacts us however as we were planning on making 55-70 miles today and with this stop we are oily going to make 34, which puts reaching Kemah out of the question by Tuesday. The goal now is to get to Hitchcock on Tuesday if possible so that our friends can catch their flights back to Dallas. If they can’t we may need to take a cab from Freeport which may be oostly but potentially the only option.
We were trying to figure out why the West Lock of the Colorado river was closed and then learned it was to keep the traffic from stacking up in Galveston where everything is shut down due to the oil spill and collision between a ship and a barge carrying oil. It appears that there was about 168,000 gallons of oil spilled into Galveston bay right at the Texas City dyke. Due to this and the clean up efforts the Intercoastal water way east and west bound is closed at the Houston Ship Channel, the Houston Ship Channel is closed, the Galveston Ship Channel is closed and the Texas City Channel is closed. This basically means there is no way to get home right now so our plan is to try to get to Hitchcock on the West side of Galveston.
We received a call from Nightingale, they had attempted to go around a tug and had the prop wash push them into shallow water and had run aground. We waited for a while to see if they were able to free up and they were not so we turned and went back to give them a tug and see if we could free them. The good news is that we were able to and we made good time heading up the ICW. The Captain on Nighingale radioed the lock operator who was willing to let us run through ahead of the barges. That allowed us to get to our designation for the night. We both ended up staying at the Matagorda City Harbor for the night.
After getting tied up and settled in at Sanctuary Costa Grande, we filled out the small honor system 1 day contract and dropped a check in the box at the leasing office that was not manned. There were a few other boats in the marina including the Power Catamaran Nightengale that we passed us in Corpus Christi bay in the dense fog.
Public patio with grill, sink, furniture and music
This marina was really nice. They had nice clean bathrooms with 2 showers in the mens and women’s room. They had 2 ice machines that were available to transient slip renters as well. There was a great walking trail that went all around the housing development and marina with a boat ramp, gazebo’s with grills, fish cleaning stations and a big 40 by 40 foot patio with nice furniture, lights and ceiling fans. They even had a control pad to play music all over the patio area. This was a really nice place.
Since we didn't get to sail this day, I figured I would post a nice video of our sailing the day before in San Antonio Bay.
Clean bathrooms for marina users
club house (not available to transient slip users)
Several gazebo's with grills and ceiling fans
Nightengale (saw them pass us in the fog in Corpus)
The Crew for this trip (Deb, Kenney, Karen and Jim)
We chatted with Gene from Nightengale about the weather expected on Sunday. It was supposed to be cloudy and the wind was going to be 15-20 knots. We decided that we didn’t want to fight the fog again like the previous morning so we figured we would leave after about 9am after the sun had some time to burn off the fog. When I got up at about 8am Nightengale had pulled out already. As the fog started to lift we started to untie, and prep for departure. Right when we did we heard Nightengale hail us on the radio. He had poked his nose out into Matagorda bay and saw 4 foot waves and winds gusting to 35 knots on the note. He let us know that he was turning around and coming back to our weather hole.
We relaxed a bit and when he pulled back into the Marina we helped tie him up as he was getting pushed off the dock pretty good by the high winds. In the end, there are worse places to be stuck. We had a nice place to stay.
As Gene and I chatted, we talked about potentially leaving the next morning. We agreed that whoever left would report back to the other on the weather.
Below are some of the pictures we took as we walked around the marina. Anyone planning on transiting the ICW, this is a really great place to stop.
We have been in Corpus Christi Texas for a couple of months now since our granddaughter was born. With my work travel schedule, it requires me to fly almost every week. Doing this out of Corpus has been a bit of a challenge due to the size of the airport and the connections.
To that end, we decided it was time to head back to the Kemah area. This is within 30 minutes of a large airport in Houston (Hobby) and allows travel to be much more easily accommodated. We started to plan our cruise from Corpus to Kemah via the ICW (InterCoastal Waterway). and some of our friends wanted to join us for the trip and thought it would be fun. A Plan was created.
We would give ourselves 4 days (5 with a buffer) and sail out on a Saturday assuming we would arrive in Kemah on Tuesday. We spent most of Friday just finishing up last minute things on the boat.
We picked up our friends late friday night, and everyone hit the sack for our early morning departure. Sunrise was scheduled to be 7:30am, so we planned on leaving by 6:30 in hopes to get a head start on the day 1 trip given we were hoping to make 74 miles before sundown.
As we were getting ready we noticed that there was dense fog but decided that we could go out slowly and stay out of the main shipping channel and it should burn off before we got to the narrow portion going to Aransas Pass. I was surprised at how hard it was to hold a course when you can't see something to "aim" toward. We made slow progress and it put us a bit behind schedule but really enjoyed the benefit of having AIS at the helm for this trip. We were able to see ships and tugs and their heading.
Barges pushed against the shore waiting for better weather
The fog cleared mid morning and we finally started to make decent progress as we headed north east on the ICW. There was a portion of the trip in Aransas Bay and San Antonio Bay where we were able to sail on a beam reach for a good portion of the trip. We were able to sail at over 7 knots for a good portion of the trip which helped us make up some time for our slow foggy start. There was quite a bit of barge traffic on the ICW and they were sitting along the bank going in and out of the bays waiting for the wind to die down. When they go through with a strong cross wind they tend to come through at an angle. Typically barges are pushed but the odd shaped ones tend to get towed.
Here we are passing a pretty large dredge barge.
Things were starting to go too good so Murphy decided to pay us a visit. As we were coming out of San Antonio Bay where the Guadalupe Bay cut intersects to it, we hailed a oncoming tug and asked if he was good passing on the "2 whistle" (this means that we will pass him so our Starboard side is closest to him). This is kind of like driving on the wrong side of the road, but since we were sailing it is safer to stay on the downwind side of him to avoid potentially being blown into him. as he approached, I gave him a wide berth so he had room to pass between an anchored tug on his left and us approaching him on his right. That is when I heard the wake next to the boat start to break and we jerked a bit. Yep, we ran aground.
From the charts we had a tough time telling where the actual channel was given the intersection area we were in. We checked the depth all the way around the boat and determined which way we needed to go. We tried to back off with no luck, we tried to spin on the keel in forward without success. We were about to take the anchor in the dinghy to kedge off of it when a fishing boat passed by. We flagged him down and asked him to give us a little tug backwards which he did and helped to get us backed off of it.
So they say that there are only 2 types of sailboaters, those that have grounded their boat and those that lie about having never grounded their boat. We are not 2 time grounders.
In the end, we actually got free in about 30 minutes and were on our way. But the delay meant we needed to stop somewhere closer for the night. We were not going to make it to our planned destination before dark.
Deb to the rescue, she started searching "active captain" points of interest and found a very promising place for the night. We will save the details of that for the next blog.
For those that don't know about Active Captain, check it out here. One of the best free services around!!! http://activecaptain.com
Servicing the boats winches should be an annual maintenance exercise, but we procrastinate, we let it go to long and now the job must be done and more damage may have occurred because of the delay.
Heck we all know as sailors that the winches need to be serviced, so why not just take the hour or two and get it done? I would suggest that for many people, it is because they are not sure exactly how to go about doing it, so it gets put on the "back burner". Routine maintenance and servicing will keep the winches running free and easy and allow for a much less stressful sailing experience.
In this post and associated how to video, I will show the challenges that I faced because I procrastinated, as well as, show step by step how to remove the winch from the boat, service it, reassemble and reinstall on the boat. Feel free to bookmark this page or the "Last Affair Boat Projects" page on our blog. You can refer to it any time you have a need for some guidance on a project you are taking on or when you intend to service your winches.
We bought our boat about 2 and a half years ago and at the time I noticed that the base of the primary winches seemed like it was "melted". In our case we have two Barient 28 Primaries and 3 Barient 21 winches.
Part of the metal was eaten away and I was mentally dreading doing this job and knew that as we finalized the refit on the inside it was time to work on the items outside, including the winches. In addition to the visual side of it, when we made a passage from Houston to Corpus for a couple of days, it became evident that the winch was so much tighter and harder to use this time. We had to fix it, and since I knew it would be a doozy, I figured I would film each part to show how we would overcome what lied ahead, in hopes that it helps you too.
Removing the winch from the Boat
We learned that it is a good idea to come up with a method to keep any parts that you remove and happen to drop, from going to the bottom of Davey Jones Locker. On our last boat, we would lay down towels around the work surface to remove the tendency for a dropped item to bounce too high. We would then build sort of a towel damn at the lower areas of where we were working so that
something rolling or falling would hit that and hopefully stop it from going over. This time we used a slightly different method that I had heard others and it also worked pretty well.
I had heard that if you take a bucket and cut a hole in the bottom of it the same size as the base of your winch, you can essentially work and remove any screws and nothing can fall out of the bucket. Doing this also made it harder to work down in the bucket. I ended up using an old flower pot base that only had about a 4 -6 inch lip on it and cut a hole in that. It allowed for easy access to the screws, and still provided some protection for anything that happened to fall. I would suggest that you use one of these methods when you do the work and just use whatever one fits your location best. You will notice in the picture that the bimini supports were in the way even for the solution that I used.
To remove the top keyed locking nut (the portion with the 2 holes in it) you are supposed to be able to
use a standard deck key, however none of mine were large enough and the specialty wrench I have for the Groco strainers was too large. However, if you put the winch handle into the top of the winch, and an old hex wrench or bolt about the size of the hole, you can turn the handle counter clockwise against the hex wrench or bolt and it will rotate and loosen that nut that holds the drum on. Once the nut is removed, you can lift up the drum. BE CAREFUL that the bearings don't stick in the drum and fall out when you lift it off the shaft. In the picture to the side, you can see that after lifting the drum off, the bearing were still on the shaft.
Disassembly
Once the drum is off and stored in a bucket or bag for cleaning later, it is time to remove the bronze winch assembly from the base. There are 4 hex bolts in the base of the bronze winch. In the picture In this picture you can see 2 of the 4 bolt holes on this unit. In order to remove these bolts I sprayed
penetrating oil on these for about 24 hours ahead of when I was working on it and reapplied every few hours (WD-40, Berrymans, etc) In our case, that "melted" metal on the base, was the aluminum and the bronze fusing together. Metals of different qualities react to one another when in contact in a conductive environment. Salt water is a conductive environment so we as boaters, have to deal with this corrosion in many areas and on many levels. Without going into a lot of detail on this, we are all familiar with the need for Zincs since they are a 'lesser' metal they corrode before vital parts of our engine do for example. This same phenomenon is what impacted this winch. The Bronze from the winch was in contact with the Aluminum base and without a protective coating on it, these 2 surfaces were touching for many years in a salt water environment. This resulted in the aluminum corroding away and almost welding or fusing itself to the bronze.
After removing the bolts that held this winch in place it still would not come out. I attempted prying up on the winch, however that felt like it was going to bend the base before anything came loose. I attempted to try a rubber mallet. I also used a heavier hammer, and tapped on the shaft (while it was protected and wrapped in line so as not to damage the smooth texture of the shaft). These didn't work. I also used a small putty knife and attempted to chisel a small groove in the fused together metals where the joint should have been. This seemed to make progress but was not enough to break it loose (I even enlisted my grand daughter since she loves to help). What ended up solving the problem was to tie a line to a cleat, wrap it around the shaft of the winch and over to another winch and apply pressure. I did that and heard a pop sound with just a bit of light pressure and it was enough to pop that winch from the base. I do think in the end it was the combination of the putty knife removing a good portion of the corrosion that was visible and then the winch pressure in the end to finish the job.
Cleaning and replacing worn parts
After removing the winch assembly it is time to remove all of the parts and prepare them for cleaning. A good trick is to take the drum that you removed and stand it on a flat surface. You can then put the base upside down in the drum opening to hold it steady. There are 3 screws on the
Screws are identified by red circles (Click to enlarge)
bottom of the winch assembly that need to be removed (again these are hex bolts) and I needed to spray them with penetrating oil to remove them. Once the 3 are removed, you can remove the bottom plate and start to remove the gears. Before you remove too many, you are also going to have to remove the screw and washer/spacer that is on the bottom of the shaft, without removing it, you won't be able to completely disassemble the parts. Everyone has their own process of removing something so they know how it goes back together. These winches are pretty forgiving and if you have the diagram you can use that as a guide. Some people prefer to take pictures as they remove each part so they have a visual reminder when assembling. Others like to place them in a line as they remove them so they know the order in which components were removed. What ever works best for you is fine. I personally like the method of being able to follow the parts diagram since there are going to be times when you have to refer to them for this project or others. This link contains documentation and a parts diagram for the Barient 28 winch. There are also links to many other winches and manuals at the the "Barient Winch Manual link"
I like to inspect each part as I remove them and put them in a small bucket (2 gallons) that has diesel
or kerosene in it. This is what I soak the parts in and use later to clean them. In my case, I used Kerosene, because I had it more readily available than anything else. You can also use Paint Thinner, but I found that the first 2 tend to work better. Now it is time to scrub all of the parts. If your winches had a lot of grease packed in them, you may find that there is hardened grease in the valleys of each gear. I used a small screwdriver to scrape that out. I don't think that would be a problem if these had been serviced
regularly. If you don't want the fuel on your hands, you can wear gloves, but be sure to get the blue nitril gloves and not latex as the latex will melt when in contact with some of the cleaning solutions. I used a tooth brush to then scrub each part thoroughly. If you have a stiff bristled straight brush that would be better. I found some at harbor freight that worked well and were cheap enough. The stiff straight bristles can reduce the splashing that will happen using a toothbrush due to the angle of the bristles.
Be sure to be careful with both of the "double gears" so that you don't pop out the springs or pawls. In the photo below, which I have left large to make it easier to see, you will notice that the inner gear has too "flaps" on it.
These are called Pawls. These pawls can lift out of the gear and there is a spring behind each one that forces it into its extended position. It is important that you do remove these for cleaning and you will likely need to replace the springs. They are inexpensive so it is worth doing it while you have it apart. I think it was about $20 for a package of 10 at West Marine. In the photo below you can see what these pawls and springs do. They act as a ratchet allowing the gear to rotate in one direction but not in the other. When it turns into the opposite direction, the ends of these pawls make contact with the outer gear 'steps' and prevents rotation. The video below as well as on the "Boat Projects" page demonstrates how to remove the pawl without losing the springs as well as how to put the springs and pawls back in. This winch has 2 gears like this so a total of 4 pawls and 4 springs on the Barient 28 2 speed self tailing winch. I suspect that is the same for most 2 speed winches
Assembly
When all parts have been thoroughly cleaned, I like to lay them all out on a flat surface and inspect them all one more time before starting the re-assembly. I also would make sure you have the supplies you will need on hand. I used winch grease that I was able to pick up at West Marine. You will
notice I am using Harken grease, they also sold Lewmar grease but it was a bit more expensive and I couldn't tell any difference in the two so went for price. I also have a small bottle of Lewmar oil to put on the springs and pawls. We don't want to get grease on these since it is too sticky, just oil those parts without grease getting in them and you will have smooth operation. I also have the package of springs. NOTE: Be sure to get the correct springs, you will notice this is a Lewmar bag, but they are specifically for Barient winches. Not all winches have the same shape springs. Surprising this is the easier part of the job now and the work gets easier from here. I like to dry fit all of the parts first before I put grease and oil on them. Go ahead and assemble the unit a few times without putting the final backing plate on, to get familiar with the steps and order that things need to go back in. There is a specific order and it becomes pretty obvious as you start to assemble that you need to put the items that are lower in first (when holding the winch upside down).
When greasing the bearings, don't overdue it. Just a small amount will do. I tend to hold the bearing in one hand and while squeezing some out of the tube, I rotate the needle bearing so that I make a small bead all the way around the bearing. I use about half as much grease as you might put on your toothbrush when brushing your teeth. I do this for each bearing and also apply grease around the teeth of each gear being careful not to get grease on the surface where the pawls are. Everything should fit together smoothly and nothing will have to be forced with maybe the exception of the final bottom plate. That I tend to tap on with a rubber mallet and then use the screws to draw it in tight.
A few things to point out when assembling.
There is a point where you are putting the last 2 speed gear on, and the outer gear can go on right side up or right side down. It is important that when they are assembled, the outer gear and inner gear and pawls are all the exact same height. If they are not, you likely have the outer gear on upside down, remove it and turn it over. I have included a photo of this but the video will show it a bit more clear. If you finish your assembly and you can't rotate the gears by hand by twisting the top of the shaft, you may have this piece upside down and the plate is putting pressure on it making it hard to turn. Finish the assembly by putting the last 3 screws in and validating that you can still rotate by hand.
Installation
Now it is time to install the bronze winch back into the aluminum base. This is pretty simple and just a reversal of what was done to remove it with one VERY large exception. We don't want to repeat this "removal of corroded metal" again so we will take some preventative steps to prevent it from happening again. This time before putting the winch into the base, apply a thin coat of "Lanacote" that can be purchased at West Marine fairly inexpensively and really should be something you keep on board your boat anyway. This is designed to create a protective coating between dissimilar metal to prevent this corrosion from happening. In addition to putting the Lanacote on the contact points between the base and winch, I also dipped each screw in it that was going to make contact with both the bronze and aluminum.
After the winch is mounted to the base, it is time to apply grease to the last 2 large drum bearings and put them onto the shaft. When complete, apply a small amount of grease to the underside edge of the drum where the teeth are, and slide it down onto the shaft and bearings. The last step is to add the self tailer line catch and then put that keyed nut in the top. Like removal, the easiest way to do this is to tighten as much as you can by hand, and then put an old screw/bolt or hex wrench into the holes and use the winch handle in a clockwise direction to turn that inner locking ring until tight.
Now you have the pleasure of turning the winch by hand and hopefully you will notice a big difference if it has been a few years since these were serviced on your boat. I know I was amazed at the difference and they were working like new for just about $50 in parts (springs, grease, oil and Lanacote) and some of my labor. I believe that moving forward, this job should take between 1-2 hours per winch and I will be doing this every year for all of them. This first time sure did take a lot longer than that, but that was due to years of neglect and I suspect it had been many years before I bought the boat that they had been serviced as well.
Below is a full length video (20 minutes or so) that shows all of the steps we have taken as well as the tools and products used to complete this work. I hope you find this useful and can pass it on to your friends or local sailing clubs, etc.
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The other day while down below working, I heard what sounded like a plane. I kind of ignored it the first time but when it flew by it sounded more like a jet but very low. I ran up into the cockpit and could see it banking over the bay just past the marina VERY LOW. I really thought it was a small private jet going down. He continued to bank and essentially made complete circle again heading over the marina. The view from the boat really looked like he was going to be skimming the mast tops. I am sure he was in the air a bit higher, but I would not say more than 1500 feet.
Here he is a bit closer to us (just over the pier in front of us)
This time I readied the camera and took a couple of pictures.
Hmmm, it was a Coast Guard Jet. I have never seen one of them here, typically we see the CG Helicopters but this was the first time seeing the jet.
The next day there was a CG Patrol boat tied up just down from us so I asked the gentleman if there was a search of some kind being conducted. They didn't know what it was for, but it was certainly interesting.
We have been all setup for Christmas on the boat now for a few weeks. The harbor we are in has a nice Christmas Boat Parade however it was scheduled for the day we returned from Vacation so we didn't participate. It was in the 30's the day of the parade and there were only 5 boats that actually showed up. We did however hang lights the outside of the boat by running colored lights around the entire boat from stem to stern along the pulpits and lifelines. We also ran white lights inside the cockpit and in the evenings we would play Christmas music through the outside speakers. We get some foot traffic down where we are from those walking down the street to the local restaurants. We enjoyed the reactions and also it helped to keep us in the Christmas spirit.
Additionally, we have a very small 2 foot Christmas tree that we decorated and put on a small table in the front of the Salon.
Christmas Garland on Arch in Salon
We hung the stockings from the Port Catches in the Salon and it really made it feel'Christmassy' down below. Deb also made a garland string that she hung on the arch between the Salon and NavStation & Galley. It looks great.
To finish off our Holiday Post, I wanted to show a bit of the Holiday on-board in the video below.
I have heard several different versions of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" but I figured this would be a nice variation to it.
Enjoy the Boating version of the story aboard Last Affair at our Youtube Channel and if you are viewing this on our blog, the video is embedded below. (Twas the boating night before Christmas on Last Affair)
Merry Christmas to All and to All a good night
Update - 12/25 (I tend to write these posts a few days prior to the post date, and in this case, I had to update the blog post with some cool news. My Daughter and her Husband were expecting their daughter to be born on Jan 2 with a planned delivery date due to the baby's position. Well, it seems that she wanted this year to be her first Christmas. Mckinlee came into our world on Christmas at 6:47pm at 9 lbs. 11 oz. So cute and such a great Christmas surprise.
Mid afternoon, we happened to notice Nightingale coming up behind us. They were making a few 
