Self-tailing Winches

Dec 23, 2025
1
Sabre 28 mkII Southwest Harbor, ME
I have a Sabre 28 MKII with old Enkes winches. I would like to upgrade to self-tailing as I will be doing a lot of solo sailing. For anyone that has self-tailing on your Sabre, what brand and size do you have?

Thank you!
 
Jan 7, 2011
5,867
Oday 322 East Chicago, IN
I upsized The winches on my O’Day 322 by moving the old primaries (Barlow 23’s I think) to my cabin top (replacing a mismatched set of single speed Lewmar and ?? 17’s). The Barlow 23’s are 2-speed and much beefier. Then I found a pair of really old and crusty Barlow 27’s off a derelict old boat and I made those my primaries.

The upsized winches are great.

Sorry I can’t answer your specific question.

Greg

 

Joe

.
Jun 1, 2004
8,262
Catalina 27 Mission Bay, San Diego
My suggestion is to keep your eye on West Marine's yearly BOGO sale of Lewmar winches. That's half price! You will not find a better opportunity anywhere. On my 27 footer, Lewmar #15 or #16 for the cabin top halyard winches, and Lewmar #30 or #40 for the headsail winches (Primary) are the best choice. Be aware of the actual gearing ratio. That info will appear in the specs section. Also "sizing" equivalency between brands is confusing to me... so these recommendations are Lewmar sizes.

Note... you might find the transition to self tailing winches surprising in that they will seem slow and cumbersome. I did anyway. That's because you will tend to load them up with full wraps on the drum to use the ST feature. So when tacking back and forth this will seem slow in comparison to non ST winches. Also using the winch jaws as a cleat was much slower than the strategically located cam cleat.... so don't remove your cleats right away. Just saying... the ST winches are cool, for sure, I love 'em.. but don't expect your single handing world to drastically change like it does when you acquire a reliable auto pilot. (the most important single handing tool you can have). Good Luck.
 
Feb 26, 2004
23,141
Catalina 34 224 Maple Bay, BC, Canada
the ST winches are cool, for sure, I love 'em.. but don't expect your single handing world to drastically change like it does when you acquire a reliable auto pilot. (the most important single handing tool you can have).
I think that this ^^^ absolutely nails the solo sailing issue.
I have been solo sailing on my own boats since 1983. I bought Winchers for my C25 jib sheet winches and found them excellent when used properly. Some folks hate them, but after reading endless posts for decades about them have concluded that those who disliked them didn't RTFM! :)
But the best bang for the buck for solo is an autopilot. Before I had the $$ for one, I rigged up John Letcher's sheet to tiller system on my C25 and got so good at it that I could tack up The Cityfront on SF Bay with it.
Joe's right about how to use self-tailers, too.
 
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