Anchor Windlass Overhaul
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
The Caribbean is anything but windless, and many of the islands’ lee sides provide the perfect opportunity to complete routine maintenance aboard our ship. Our most recent maintenance project focused on one of the most important tools we use aboard our ship: the windlass. On the foc’sle head of the Picton Castle sits a large piece of steel equipment that resembles what would be a rather uncomfortable adult-sized teeter-totter. This is the Picton Castle’s “Armstrong” patent windlass made by the Lunenburg Foundry, and it is a tool that we use to heave up the anchor. It is straight out of the age of sail. At times it can be a great deal of work to heave up a ton of anchor and hundreds of feet of monster chain, but Captain Moreland keeps things in perspective when he points out that the entire process would be significantly more difficult without the windlass!
A few days ago, Captain Moreland and Captain Phil Watson of Bluenose II (who visited us as Chief Mate for a short time) took advantage of a beautiful Caribbean afternoon to inspect, adjust, and improve on the working parts of the windlass while four members of the on-watch hovered around them like shadows in order to learn a thing or two. A fun thing about working aboard a traditional sailing ship, such as this, is that traditional hand tools are often enough to get the job done. Today, for instance, we used a sledge hammer and section of tree stump, a raw-hide mallet, steel C-clamp, a chisel, a crescent wrench, an oil pencil, and steel chipping hammers to get most of the job done. An advantage of working in a traditional sailing ship in this day and age is that we have access to AC power when we need it, and Captain Moreland and Captain Phil needed power to operate a belt sander, a grinder and a cutting wheel so that the job would be finished properly before the sun went down.
For a piece of equipment that I’ve used what feels like hundreds of times, I know remarkably little about the inner workings of our ship’s windlass. I know that to heave up the anchor the brake must be off, the clutch in gear, and the windlass bars in. Then we wait for the Captain’s order to “Heave along” and we haul up the hook. Today, however, I had the first opportunity to see inside the typically enclosed windlass shoes to appreciate the quality and technology of this antique device.
Captain Phil took the belt sander to the steel band inboard of the Starboard Gypsy head and Captain Moreland took the grinding wheel to the steel band to Port, while deckhand Katie (Chicago) and I rust-busted the Port band with chipping hammers, preparing it for Captain Moreland. It was a very noisy place to work with two power tools and two steel hammers grinding and pinging away on the bare steel, but we were happy with our racket because we knew we were doing an important job, and few things in life are more satisfying than seeing instant results in a labour-intensive project.
It is very important to keep the steel friction bands of the windlass bare, and that can be tricky on a ship sailing the salt sea where the bands are exposed to the elements 24 hours a day. Typical methods of steel preservation such as sealing, greasing, or painting will only interfere with the way the windlass works, so this is one of those areas that we just have to keep an eye on. When Captain Moreland and Captain Phil were pleased with the shiny new finish on the steel bands, it was time to open up the “shoes” of the windlass. The shoes are crescents of heavy steel that slide up and down on the forward side of the windlass. Inside each shoe is a small, curved, “free falling” steel plate. When the windlass is in operation, the plate alternates between being jammed and falling free within the curved bare steel surface inside the windlass shoe. If both surfaces are not smooth, the plate will not slide or separate properly, creating a great deal of uneven wear and preventing the windlass from working properly, if at all.
When the shoes were disassembled, Captain Moreland and Captain Phil divided and conquered the tasks at hand. Captain Moreland took the grinding wheel to the inside of the shoe to make adjustments to the angles of the openings while Captain Phil took the small steel plates to the Well Deck and adjusted the individual curve of the plates with a little persuasion from the sledge hammer and tree trunk.
Those of us standing by watched silently with intense interest and responded promptly to the Captain’s instructions to heave up or down slowly and gently on the windlass while all of the heavy pieces were reassembled and balanced properly back into place. It was a tedious, labour intensive, trial-and-error sort of afternoon, but we were all very pleased to have learned something new and to not have crushed the Captain’s hands. We were still smiling when we wound up the hose after a thorough deck wash in the hot-pink and buttercup-coloured Caribbean sunset.
