I wouldn't be putting a 510 on a
boat as heavy as a Westsail. These windlasses were designed for small boats both in strength of the unit and pulling
power. I had a 555
windlass for our Westsail which was supposedly designed for a
boat as heavy as a W32. In cruising around SoCal back in the '70s before leaving, noticed everyone of the SL510, mostly, and 555 windlasses that we ran across were non functioning. A non scientific
survey but it was 100% broken for more than 10 winches we ran across. The SL510 had a severe problem with
corrosion between the stainless shafts and the
aluminum casing locking them up. Believe they went to a phenolic bearing on later models to alleviate this problem. That still didn't cure the problem with the fragility of the chain drives. I seem to remember that the chain for the drive was some odd ball size that was nearly impossible to source from anywhere else but SL.
It bothered me enough to sell the 555 and buy a simple ratchet and pawl, two handled
Stainless Steel and
Bronze windlass made in Costa Mesa. Unfortunately, OSHA put the Moritz Foundry, that made them, out of business or I'd encourage you to look for one of them. Dead simple, ultra reliable, fast with two handles and as much
power as the length of the lever you used to crank it.
In any case, I wouldn't be using a 510 on a Westsail 32. The 555's come up occasionally on Ebay and would be my choice if you must have an SL
manual windlass. There was also a far east copy of the 555 availalble. Don't know if it was any better than the 555 or had other problems of its own.
FWIW, there was a couple cruising on an Ingrid with an
electric windlass. The ease of upping the
anchor on their boat gave me a severe case of powered windlass envy. They'd move their 30,000# boat around like a
dinghy pulling the anchor and motoring a few hundred feet for new
diving territory at the drop of a hat.
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