Windlass does not pull rope

[wingless]

Originally Posted by Burkan

I have Pictures now. I could not find any markings to let me know what size rope I need.

So when I operated the Windlass to pull the anchor, the Windlass over heated and tripped the circuit breaker. Not sure if the anchor chain is too long and too heavy for the boat. I have not measured it yet but it seams a lot longer than the length of the boat.

What is the rule of thump for the length of the chain? should it be at least as long as the boat?

The chain and the rope must be properly sized for the windlass and for the gypsy.

That Lofrans Dorado windlass may have one of three different gypsy parts. All three gypsy parts accept ½" line, but the chain must be correct for the gypsy.

Here is the web page w/ the manual link,

Page 26 shows the chain sizes that will work with each gypsy.

It looks like the line diameter is too large and the chain links are too small.

The gypsy looks broken!

Page 22 has troubleshooting.

A good starting point is to perform the listed maintenance. Check that all the electrical connections are clean and solid.

When I purchased my boat I had an all-chain rode, 200' of chain, with zero issue using the Lofrans windlass. I have since changed to rope / chain. A good setup is 20' of chain and 150' to 200' of rope.

[Burkan]

Thanks for the replies and the great sources posted, When I operate the Windlass, if the anchor is set I make sure to move forwards slowly to take out any of the tension. But the problem I have is after the anchor (Bruce type, please see picture) is loose and off the bottom. The chain and anchor are too heavy. The rope slips when the windlass is operated, not sure if I'm working the windlass correctly, I press down on the rope with the leaver, maybe I'm putting too much pressure on the Windlass with my foot. Again I'm new to this and may be operating the windlass wrong. Please see the picture I posted earlier of how the leaver is on the windlass.

[wingless]

Has the previously-linked owner's manual been examined?

The manual specifies that the 500W Dorado will lift 1,386 lbs and the 700W will lift 1,980 lbs. Either will lift that rode. That rode is not tool heavy. If the windlass is overloaded then the motor will stall (stop). Is the motor stalling?

As was stated, the rope is too fat for the gypsy. The gypsy only works w/ ½" rope. How is the performance / operation when ½" rope is used?

The gypsy looks broken. The two link halves are offset. Those ellipse-shaped cavity halves should be aligned.

The lever is pressed down with a spring. That lever / spring keeps the chain or rope in the gypsy, to not pop out. If that spring is broken then it should be replaced. The lever does not provide massive force, just to keep the rode in-position.

[Burkan]

Originally Posted by wingless

Has the previously-linked owner's manual been examined?

The manual specifies that the 500W Dorado will lift 1,386 lbs and the 700W will lift 1,980 lbs. Either will lift that rode. That rode is not tool heavy. If the windlass is overloaded then the motor will stall (stop). Is the motor stalling?

As was stated, the rope is too fat for the gypsy. The gypsy only works w/ ½" rope. How is the performance / operation when ½" rope is used?

The gypsy looks broken. The two link halves are offset. Those ellipse-shaped cavity halves should be aligned.

The lever is pressed down with a spring. That lever / spring keeps the chain or rope in the gypsy, to not pop out. If that spring is broken then it should be replaced. The lever does not provide massive force, just to keep the rode in-position.

Yes I have and downloaded it. Thank you very much.


I will purchase a 1/2 " rope and us it, but my question is What will keep the rope from slipping? Also from your response, i take it that when the windlass is operated it should be hands off ( no foot pedal) pressure applied? if that is the case, I may have a broken spring for that lever. because it has no tension on it in any way, I actually flipped that over and used it to put pressure on the rope to get it to stop slipping.



Maybe that's why the windlass over heated and the circuit breaker tripped.

[wingless]

The windlass should not overheat and should not trip the breaker.

It may be that the wire size is too small for the round trip wire length. A more likely issue is that the connections were either poorly done, deteriorated or both.

Using a voltage meter, measure the voltage at the windlass motor terminals during operation and compare that to the battery voltage. They should match within 1VDC.

If the voltage difference exceeds that threshold, then that poor supply could cause overheating.

Has the windlass been serviced per the Owner's Manual? It may be that corrosion or dried grease is causing excessive rotational resistance.

That part is not a "foot pedal". It is a "finger" that guides the chain and the rope into the capstan.

That light-duty spring should maintain a constant force, always pushing the finger into the capstan. Get or make a replacement spring if broken, item number 238.

[Burkan]

What is the difference between the Capstan and a Gypsy? are they interchangeable meaning the same thing?

[TrentePieds]

Burkan:

Wingless has gone a long way towards putting you right.

Here's a couple of other things. If you are already aware of them, just remember that you can't say a good thing to often ;-)! Someone else mentioned that the two plates of your gypsy appear to be misaligned. A chain gypsy works somewhat like a chain and sprocket "inside out". One link of the chain lies flat into the "wide part" of the gypsy and the next link "stands on edge" in the "narrow part" of the gypsy. It is therefore crucially important that the length of link matches the dimensions of the gypsy. And that the plates are correctly aligned. If a PO bought new chain, willy-nilly, from, say, an autoparts dealer like, say, NAPA, you may not have the required match.

When the match is right, having the chain travel around 90º of the gypsy's circumference is normally enuff, and it appears that your chain does that and then drops straight down the spurling pipe, so there should be no problems there. As Wingless sez, the "lever" is not a pedal. It is a "follower" that by virtue of quite a light springload guides the chain to lie correctly in the gypsy, so if you "stood" on it you may well have imparted enuff friction against the rotation of the gypsy that the breaker popped.

Now the tricky bit :-) IMHE this particular windlass will NOT work on rope. The gypsy, while maybe intended by Lofran to function analogously to the "clam plates" on a "self tailing" sheet winch, cannot do so for the following reason: Observe carefully how we use a sheet winch. You will see that we take THREE FULL TURNS of the rope around a plain drum. The friction of the THREE TURNS is what does the work, so there is HARDLY ANY tension on the part of the rope that goes into the clam plates. If you take only one turn on the drum of a sheet winch, the rope will pop out of the clam plates due to its residual tension where the plates are trying to grab it.

On your windlass there is no drum, and even with the "serrations" of the gypsy, you have only a QUARTER OF A TURN rather than THREE FULL TURNS, i.e. you have only ONE TWELFTH of the "grabbing power" of a similar diameter sheet winch. So in that respect your windlass is pretty useless. Don't take it too hard - we've all seen the movie ;-)! Your windlass will work just fine if you use ALL CHAIN, but who would do that in a 26-foot sports fisherman? Somewhere - before you bought the boat - someone made a bad choice. But given the costs of windlasses, if I were you, I'd just live with it.

The sensible answer is to do what I do: Let Mr. Armstrong do the work :-)

All the best

TrentePIeds

[TrentePieds]

No. A capstan has a plain drum revolving around a VERTICAL axis. Below the drum is a gypsy, a set of plates like the ones on your windlass that are designed to handle chain. Rope has to be handled on a plain drum.

A windlass has a plain drum one end and a gypsy the other end of a HORIZONTAL shaft. So what you have, is correctly termed a windlass. Except that yours is incomplete in that it doesn't have a drum.

So as you see a "gypsy" is a constituent part of both windlasses and capstans. These machines are used for different jobs aboard "grown-up" ships. In the sailing ships of yore the capstan was the machine of choice for handling "ground tackle", i.e. anchoring gear. In modern day motorships, such as fishing vessels, the windlass is used just as often for that purpose.

But as I said before - some things "don't scale" :-)

TP

[wingless]

Originally Posted by Burkan

What is the difference between the Capstan and a Gypsy? are they interchangeable meaning the same thing?

No, my error, your windlass does not have the capstan that exists in other models, like in the Kobra model of the previously-linked manual, yours only has the chain / rope gypsy.

All instances where I referenced capstan should have instead referenced gypsy.

[Burkan]

After reading your responses and the user manual for the Lofrans Dorado Windlass I realized how little I knew about this thing. It seems simple enough, push a button and the anchor comes down, push a the other way and the anchor comes up.

So I do not have a capstan to pull the rope although the User's manual says to use a 12mm (1/2") rope. Since the user's manual says to use 12mm rope how do they expect it to be raised? Not sure on this one.

If I decide to use all chain for the anchor how long must that chain be?

[wingless]

Originally Posted by Burkan

So I do not have a capstan to pull the rope although the User's manual says to use a 12mm (1/2") rope. Since the user's manual says to use 12mm rope how do they expect it to be raised?

The Lofrans Dorado windlass may have one of three different gypsy parts. All three gypsy parts accept ½" line, but the chain must be correct for the gypsy.

Even though the gypsy shown in the images appears damaged, w/ the two ellipse-shaped cavity halves having an offset, instead of being properly aligned, the internal ribbed section, where the rope rides, appears intact, to work properly w/ ½" line.

Yes, the capstan exists only in the Kobra model or your windlass. All models have a chain / rope gypsy.

Originally Posted by Burkan

If I decide to use all chain for the anchor how long must that chain be?

The rode length is determined by the anchorage water depth.

A good rule of thumb is 5:1 to 10:1 scope, ratio of deployed rode length to height from sea bed to anchor roller.

Note that with an all chain rode a snubber w/ a chain hook must be used to transfer the holding power from the windlass to a deck cleat. When using chain / rope the rope may be secured to the cleat.

[TrentePieds]

Oy - we gotta go back to the basics ;-)!

First off: What you read in user manuals about the technical stuff - construction, dimensions, service procedures, etc. you can believe. What you read in advertising and other promotional materials relating to boat-bits you might as well discard as mere marketing fluff. That includes the assertion in your Lofrans manual that the model of windlass you have can handle rope. Well, it ain't so. 12 millimeter, 1/2 inch or any other dimension. But it doesn't really matter. To do what you need to do doesn't require mechanical aids. All they will ever do for you is cause you aggravation and expense.

Now, the length of rope (called "rode") you put out is CRUCIALLY important to safe anchoring. The rule of thumb is this: Stopping for lunch in a quiet bay on a quiet day, you put out a length of rode that equates to: (The distance from your stemhead roller to the water + the draft of your boat + depth of water you want under your keel at low + the expected rise of tide while you'll be in that location) X 3. When you do that, you are said to be "on a scope of three". For an overnight stop under the same conditions, you go to a scope of five. If it's expected to blow at all, you go to a scope of seven.


As you can see, the first three parts of this equation will always be the same. In my 30-foot sailboat they are (4+5+5) feet = 14 feet. If I am expecting a 15 foot rise of tide, as we often have here and I judge that I need a scope of seven, I need to lay out (14 + 15) x 7 = 203 feet of rode. This needn't be really exact. You already know that the measure of 6 feet is called "a fathom" by seafaring men. "A fathom" also means "as much as you can hold in your arms" and in consequence "a fathom" of rope is the length of rope you can hold between you hands when you spread your arms. So 203 feet equals (203/6) = 33 or 34 fathoms.

So to anchor I totally ignore my capstan. It's a Lofrans and subject to the usual "glossy mag" rubbish that holds that "pretty" trumps "useful". From the "chain locker", through the "spurling pipe", I manually haul out 34 fathoms of rode and flake it down on deck as I go. So now I'm PREPARED to anchor. We can come back to just how I do that.

This business of scope is independent of whether the rode is rope or chain. Chain is heavy, rope is less so. Chain is self-stowing, rope is less so. 5/16" chain weight which is what you'd use weight about 80 lbs per hundred feet, so to carry "all chain" rode I would have weight equivalent to a well-grown woman sitting right up forward the whole time. That would impact my sea-keeping ability quite severely. And it would impact yours more severely yet, because yours is a planing power boat. You might not even get her on the plane!

I have forty feet of 5/16" chain shackled to the shank of my Bruce anchor. That in turn is spliced to 250 feet of 1/2" nylon rope, so I have about half again as much as I normally need for a scope of seven.

Now get that under your belt - then we can continue to discuss the rôle of weight in anchoring :-)

Cheers

TrentePieds

[Burkan]

[QUOTE=TrentePieds;2911238]Oy - we gotta go back to the basics ;-)!

Now get that under your belt - then we can continue to discuss the rôle of weight in anchoring :-)

Thank you TrentePieds, I actually understood all of what you told me. Thank you for clearing things up. I do appreciate you and Windless and all others who chimed in.

Next time I'm on the boat (most likely coming Saturday) I will open up take a go at servicing the Windlass and put on a new rope to match your rode.

Oh one other thing I read in the user's manual, they discuss brakes and clutch for lowering the anchor by gravity and manual override. Now that would be for after I service the Windlass.





5.1.2 Lowering the anchor by gravity
1 – Make sure that the clutch is
tightened and then disengage the chain
stopper or safety stops. Disengage the
brake.
2 – Disengage the clutch gradually
through the manoeuvre handle.
Note: to adjust the descent speed of the
chain act, through the handle, on the
clutch. By turning it clockwise, the
braking speed of the chain will increase
(until complete stop), while by turning
it anticlockwise, braking will be
reduced.
3 – Fix the chain (or the rope) to a
strong point.


5.3 Use of the manual override
Make sure that the clutch is engaged.
Disengage the brake, chain stopper, and
safety stops. Insert the manoeuvre
handle into the hand-wheel and turn
clockwise by overcoming the strength
of the spring contained in the reducer.
In case of deep sea, the effort will turn
out to be significant.





1 – Make sure that the hydraulic
magnetic circuit breaker is activated.
2 - Make sure that the clutch is well
tightened and the brake is disengaged.
Take out the manoeuvre handle from
the drum or gipsy.
3 – Disengage the chain stopper and
safety stops.
4 – Press the UP button from the control
at your disposal until the anchor reaches
its position inside the bow roller.
5 – Deactivate the hydraulic magnetic
circuit breaker.
6 – Fix the chain with the chain stopper.
In this way a potential damage of the
anchor windlass will be avoided as well
as unexpected chain releases.

[Burkan]

Originally Posted by wingless

The Lofrans Dorado windlass may have one of three different gypsy parts. All three gypsy parts accept ½" line, but the chain must be correct for the gypsy.

Even though the gypsy shown in the images appears damaged, w/ the two ellipse-shaped cavity halves having an offset, instead of being properly aligned, the internal ribbed section, where the rope rides, appears intact, to work properly w/ ½" line.

Yes, the capstan exists only in the Kobra model or your windlass. All models have a chain / rope gypsy.





The rode length is determined by the anchorage water depth.

A good rule of thumb is 5:1 to 10:1 scope, ratio of deployed rode length to height from sea bed to anchor roller.

Note that with an all chain rode a snubber w/ a chain hook must be used to transfer the holding power from the windlass to a deck cleat. When using chain / rope the rope may be secured to the cleat.

Thank you Windless for your response.

[TrentePieds]

Alright - I'll sit down and be quiet ;-0)!


But correct me if I'm wrong: The Bruce I see in your pics is a fifteen-pounder? Stick forty feet of 5/16 chain on it, and the whole kit'n'kaboodle will weigh less than 60 lbs.

Why make your life difficult by messing with a windlass to lower the anchor? Just let the rode run out through your hands. The anchor will tell you by "telegraphing" through your rode what its doing. Don't let a silly windless come between you and such valuable information :-)!

One other thing. I have a hunch that the foredeck on you little boat is not a particularly safe place to work. There's no law that sez you MUST anchor over the bows. That's just a silly convention left over from a time when there was good practical reason to do it that way. I rarely do (for reasons that have to do with my boats fundamental design). I anchor over the stern all the time because it makes EVERYBODY'S life easier. You could think about doing that too. In your boat it would be MUCH safer. And if I at the age of 80 I can lift 80 lbs of ground tackle off the bottom and take it aboard, I'm sure so can you :-)

TP