Ben, Before you ride off into the spring sunset, please follow up on the question I asked about painting my winches. See your 17 Mar reply. You indicated that the color coding of the winch was a new one on you. Your marketing dept at Lewmar may want to look into it. On a sailboat there are a lot of items that are color coded for ease of use. Most noticable are the lines used for the halyards, sheets etc. The rope people have a host of color coded lines that serve to aide in the rapid usage (read; identify) as one grabs for a sheet or tries to tell a shipmate to grab the correct line. Tell tales are color coded for tactical and practical application. Look what the sail makers do with colors in their spinnakers and the color of the special materials used in main sails, the jibs etc. Same should go for the winches. A color code of red and green would correspond to the side of the boat the winch is placed or utilized. An off-navigation color would indicate a winch usage for utility lines such as a running back stay or a mast mounted topping lift winch: a special color winch for the jib halyard would help. And I'll bet the list could go on if one would ponder it. A brighty colored winch would also brighten up a cockpit and add a bit of zazz to the area. In any case I intend to paint my non-chrom winches and see how it goes. Ask your marketing dept if they would look into this ?? Sail on RD