Conference unifix::sailing

173.0. "Enkes Self-Tailing Winches" by OEDPUS::BLAISDELL () Thu Sep 12 1985 22:24

I am investigating small self-tailing winches for a possible application on
a small cruising boat. My reasons for this apparent overkill and
extravagance may be interesting to other potential new boat buyers so let me
tell that story first. 

I've already noted under note 170 that Catalina has made a number of nice
changes to the interior and deck layout of the C-22 for the '86 season;
however I believe they also made at least one error. On the C-22 winches are
mounted on the cockpit rail and on the pre-86 boats the rail is widened in
one area specifically for mounting winches. The advantage of this widened
surface was that you could place a standard winch at the outside edge and
place two cam-matics for sheet cleeting on the inside edge, one leading to
the crew's position and one toward the skipper for singlehanding. On the '86
boats the diameter of the standard Lewmar 7s is almost as wide as the
narrowed mounting surface requiring that the cam-matic be mounted aft of the
winch. With this configuration the genoa sheet would lead straight back to
nowhere and the tail would be much more likely to go overboard. The dealers
I talked to recognized this as a problem and have been willing to discuss 
credits for not ordering the standard winches and winch exchanges.

It seemed to me that self-tailing winches may correct this problem so I've
done some window shopping both at the Newport show and in my catalogue 
collection. I am attracted to two compact Enkes winches (10ST & 12ST) but
I know nothing of the company. Does anyone have any experience with these
Enkes winches, with any Enkes winches, and can comparisons be made to winches
from manufacturers I do recognize, eg. Lewmar, Maxwell, Barient? 

This might also be a good place to discuss standard winches versus
self-tailers. I know I know next to nothing about self-tailers. 

Thx for the help. Bob
                        

Having standard Lewmars on my own boat, and sailed on several boats 25-42'
with and without self-tailers, I plan to get self-tailers on my next boat.

(The owner of the brand new 42 got it w/o self tailers and will probably dump
his new expensive Barients for ST Barients this winter.)

     Travis