We docked in Puerto Real, met up with our friends, and set about fixing all the things that had broken on the Mona (or really, while the boat sat unused for six months). First, we had to clean some things up, so Jazz took the old cable out of the davits. The easy way, with over-powered cable snips.
Don and I took the apart and put them back together, with new wire and a lot of grease.
The windlass proved to be un-saveable. The motor has four brushings; these make contact with different plates inside the motor, which energize electromagnets and push the motor around. As the motor spins around, these graphite brushings wear away, but springs push them into the center so they keep making contact. All four were stuck in place, so the motor wouldn’t spin. Two of them, pictured below, could be freed, but one of the others broke, and the last was hopelessly stuck. This should be a simple matter of a cheap replacement brushing assembly, but the motor (and in fact the whole whole windlass) is too old, and we ended up having to order a brand new motor. Ah, boats. At least we could order that.
We also installed the new compass for our autopilot. Captain was very helpful with this process, as he always is.
In the meantime, we had some fun: there’s a bar right by the marina with good food and an even better sign in the corner outside.
And the sunset from the dock wasn’t bad at all.
Thanks for sharing. Sunset was stellar!
Thank you for the detail photo of the windlass bushings.
I didn’t even know what a windlass is. My 17.5 ft runabout doesn’t have one.
Some day I hope to buy an off road vehicle with a metal cable winch.
Your travel & sailing reports are terrific.