Quote:
Originally Posted by Brob2
There should be a cleat of some sort aft of each winch for you to tie off your sheets to. I'm not sure when the first self tailing and locking winches were introduced but many or most of us learned to sail on winches like yours before that fancy stuff came along.
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I asked the local font of all knowledge, who lives aboard on F
dock. He said, if I recorded his wisdom correctly:
* single-speed top cranked winches became popular after the 1903 America's Cup, in which they were used for trimming
halyard and sheets. Before that, snubbing winches (no cranking, just a ratchet) and bottom cranked winches were the cutting edge.
* multi-speed top cranked winches became popular in the 1960s after, you guessed it, they were used in an America's Cup. Most point to
LewMar, the company started by Len Lewery and Les March, and the key inventor being Henry Shepherd, an expert on helicopter gearboxes who joined
Lewmar.
* self-tailing top cranked (and multispeed) winches appeared in the early 1970s, around 1972. Initially quite a variety of designs, including winches with a jockey
wheel that held the tail to the winch drum, winches with top and bottom jaws around the tailing channel moving at different speeds, winches with top and bottom jaws that clamped together, and so on. The Font of All Knowledge reckoned that
Barient was the first self-tailing winch looking much like what we take for granted today, with all the other winch companies coming up with minor variations and improvements of the
Barient self-tailing jaws. And the FoAK reckoned that 1974-75 was the first big year for self-tailing winches.
* the 11/16" double square star socket on the top of the spindle of a top-cranked winch became an international standard for the major winch manufacturers in 1972. Several different sockets before that, including 5/8" square and 11/16" square.