Barient Winch Handle Backstay Adjuster?

[lostatsea]

I just bought one of these at a garage sale for $20.. It has 5/8" pin size on the toggles and looks fairly heavy-duty. I saw them on a lot of fast cruising boats a while ago and loved the simplicity (operated by a common multi-point winch-handle) and apparent robustness.... anyone know how to check for failure and how or who rebuilds them? I plan on using it on my Tayana 42 which I am now racing on SF Bay.... wheee! Thanks.

[Jim Cate]

G'Day, Lost,

That tensioner is a great bit of kit. Had one on Insatiable I for all 18 years we owned her, and greased it once. Still working as new when we sold her. So, my query is why do you think it needs rebuilding? 'Tis a very simple mechanism with a worm gear and some plain bushings. TAking it apart is pretty intuitive: take off the cover plate and unscrew the two end caps and all is revealed. Clean out old grease and any bits of metal, repack it with some hogh pressure grease and reassemble... Bob's your uncle!

Good luck with it, mate!

Cheers,

Jim

[Meridian]

Racing a Tayana 42?
"Ready, set, GO...no, really, go...ok, go now...c'mon, get going"
This grief brought to you by another Tayana owner.
Enjoy the boat and the bay...both are world-class.
John

[lostatsea]

Thanks for the info- I was more concerned about the chrome-plated bronze toggles being up to the job- they're getting old I imagine... then there's the stainless rod- the actual in/out slider part... any recollection about the specs? Working load, breaking strength etc....
I'd love to use this thing- it smacks of smart engineering and doesn't have seals that fail.... It'd be cool to replace all my turnbuckles with these! (A bit heavy, maybe...) Cheers!
Your location makes me think of the best day sailing I think I ever had- on the Pittwater in an A-class cat- Aussie approach to sailing- beach launch etc... Thanks!

[lostatsea]

Hey Meridian, I guess you do own one.... I look at racing mine as a full spectrum event- I start racing about 5 minutes before the gun; with the engine at full throttle about 300 yards from the line- we shut down at 4 minutes and coast around the rest of the course- sometimes on the downwind leg I even set a sail....!
Well, almost. If we're in light conditions, we do ok- so far this season it's been two races unfinished- due to no wind and last night, too much wind and then none. I am racing to see if I can sail to the PHRF average of 150. I have a fixed blade prop however and old (original, 1984 ) sails. Have you sailed with a full genoa before? How'd that go- I am tempted to try it for around the bouys...

[Meridian]

Lost...glad to see you took my "dig" with the humor in which it was intended. I'd never actually disparage a fellow boater nor his boat.
I actually did alot of my early sailing on SF bay on a friend's Tayana 37...beautiful, ketch-rigged boat. We'd often set the full working jib and the mizzen, and leave the main down. Balanced beautifully this way, and sailed well, specially reaching and off the wind. Needed the main for anything higher than about 60 degrees apparent.
My current boat has a high-cut Yankee jib, so I can't honestly call it a full genoa, but we fly it often. We're also cutter rigged, so the staysail is often up too. Our best configuration for winds anywhere in the 20's (typical SF stuff) is deeply reefed jib, full staysail, and 1 or 2 reefs in main. Fast, balanced, and manageable. My boat, and the 37 I was on, sail best when they're on their feet, and not too deeply heeled.
Enjoy...your season is just coming up. We miss Ayala Cove, Aquatic Park, and the Sausalito waterfront. You're in a great spot.
John

[lostatsea]

John,
You could not get a better experiential education in sailing than here on SF Bay, that's for sure. I guess you're in a pretty good spot yourself... isn't that near the hot springs north of Auckland? I went to a "Hot springs theme-park" there once... I remember sitting in a boiling pool drinking cocktails (not the best for hydration) as fast as I could and watching a feature length film on a theater sized screen... kind of a "steam-in" movie theater! Thanks for the advice- in last evenings race we were rail-under for 1/2 the upwind leg (Raccoon Straits to Yellow Bluff) and couldn't point to save our lives- too much headstay sag (going back to the backstay tensioner here) but on the return leg, we were able to catch a couple of boats with the staysail set on a beam reach, a fairly happy point of sail it seems. My boat will go upwind in a blow or less with no hands on the wheel- "feathering" herself almost perfectly but she requires a bit of baby-sitting with the wind abeam or on the quarter. I have not sailed her much and don't have a spinnaker so the DDW performance is an unknown but I imagine she'd roll pretty well as a double ender... I haver lots to do to make her ready for a cruise of any length. I am living aboard and daysailing, singlehanding mostly but doing the Friday Nighters at Corinthian YC for kicks. Just getting around the buoys registers as a win for me at this point! I am probably the only person crazy enough to try to bouy-race one of these lead torpedoes... I am not (so far ) in agreement with the PHRF of 150... We got passed pretty easily last night by an Ericson 27 which rates 170- ARRGH! Still a fun thing. Cheers. Johnston

[Meridian]

Johnston...next time you're headed upwind, try this...
1) Add halyard tension to the jib
2) Slide the genoa cars all the way aft, if you have them
3) if needed, roll up 1/3 of the jib to keep on your feet
4) If your staysail is cut flat, fly it up to about 45 degrees apparent. If not flat, don't bother until reaching. (cars aft as well).
5) Don't over-trim the main...a tad loose is better than too tight.
6) if she wants to fall off 5 degrees and rewards you with an extra 1/2 knot, let her. Anticipate the puffs and head high when you can to make up the lost course.
7) Don't short-tack if you don't need to...longer tacks builds more speed, and you won't lose as much speed with frequent tacks.
8) And for Gawd's sake, clean your bottom!


If going DDW, try wing-on-wing. Don't bother with a pole, but do prevent the main. If she rolls, steer a course that puts the main 5-10 degrees to leeward, with the jib just on the verge of collapsing. Takes a gentle touch, but the ride should be smooth in the absence of swell.

This is all stuff you already know, but I am just learning.

John

[Jim Cate]

G'Day again Lost,

There is no simple way to determine how stressed your unit was during its former life. If you are really worried, you could have the rods and toggles x-rayed for cracks, but that does not really address fatigue problems. Assuming that the unit was properly toggled I would not be terribly concerned. You might check the holes in the toggles for elongation or other distortion.

As to original specs, can't help you, but Barient was a conservative company, and I would strongly suspect that the rods and all the other stressed parts would have been rated to be consistant with the clevis size. In our case (also 5/8 inch clevis pins) we had 5/16" wire, and one rigger commented that the adjuster was oversized FWIW. One can buy Barient winch parts from the Great Australian Winch Co in Sydney, Aust, and it might be worth your while to contact them -- who knows what they have in their records?

And good onya for the racing bit. We raced on SF Bay for twenty years before going cruising, and I still advocate that any potential cruiser do some club racing in their proposed cruising boat. Ain't any better way to learn how to sail her IMO, but I regularly get flamed when I say that on the forums!!! Keep at it, and go waste that 27 footer next time!

Cheers,

Jim

[lostatsea]

Hi Jim,
Good advice- but unfortunately, just in the last half hour, I discovered the clevis pins on all the upper shrouds and stays are 3/4"! Wire size 3/8 mated to 3/4 pins is apparently unusual and makes for a pretty expensive turnbuckle (if it can be found?) but I LIKE oversize and certainly the boat has a reputation for being over-built. So I am gonna give the Barient adjuster to someone who can use it and go Hydraulic ... oh well, I can't live in the past in every regard (or maybe I can fit it to the baby-stay to make it easy to remove). I just like the "good old" stuff- simple, strong, serviceable. (SSS?) A good acronym for what works.
I agree that racing learns you all you wanted to learn and more about any particular vessel and a lot about others also... Example: many folks have never had the thrill of breaking a mast in a round-down in 40 knots of breeze (and it ought to be required for a drivers license); once you've experienced that strange, silent wallow when the boat gets upright but the mast doesn't, you've learned to prepare for several kinds of future crisis: how to keep from holing the hull, how to remain calm when drifting onto a lee shore with a fouled prop, how to retrieve persons from the water, how to jury rig a spar and almost most important, how to go out and try it again! I have been on three different boats when we have busted masts on the bay... usually going downwind, in lots of wind with the big kite up... twice I was on the bow watching everybody hang on with both hands, even the helmsman in one situation (which caused the whole crisis in the first place!). Thanks again for the info- Johnston

[Scott Berg]

Just a plug for this unit; we had one on our our Hughes 38 and used it all the time... a great piece of gear; and I paid much more for mine! Someone will love this...