Watski Winchers

[Alastair Longley-Cook]

Has anybody had any experience using these for jibsheet winches? Thery're supposed to work like a poor man's self-tailer, particularly for halyard winches, but some say they work OK for jib sheets as well. Even if they help, I'm concerned that it will be harder to flip the sheet off the leeward winch during tacking.

 

[Doug T.]

Winchers

We have them on the Lewmar 25 jib sheet winches on our Sabre 28 that we just purchased. I'm not too thrilled with them. They take up vertical room on the winch -- I have a hard time getting three clean wraps of 3/8" line around the drum below the winchers. In strong winds when four wraps are appropriate, we're out of luck. They don't tail very cleanly either -- the line gets stuck in the wincher groove and starts wrapping all the way around the winch. I'm probably going to remove them next time we're out at the boat. Gonna buy real self-tailing winches... eventually.

 

[Garry @ S/V TASHTEGO]

Winchers

I have them on the genoa sheet winches on TASHTEGO and they work just fine once you get used to them. It is necessary to get the sheet in most of the way before putting the line in the wincher because, as Doug mentioned, there is no stripper to lift the line out once it has made a full turn. It has simplified single handing TASHTEGO, I just leave the sheets in the wincher and don't bother to cleat them off unless it is really blowing (on the Chesapeake this only happens in hurricanes). I'll stick with the winchers as I don't really want to pay the price for new self tailers.