Primary Winchs

It is my understanding that Maxwell was bought out by another company and not all parts are available. I would suggest you not spend any more time working the Maxwells and install new winches if at all possible. I bought Harken 32.2 ST’s (self-tailing) for my primary and Harken 16.2 for my cabin tops winches and they are the correct size for this boat and work great. The cabin tops work fine for cross sheeting the spinnaker. Both sizes are two speed and in all fairness I do not know if the two speed cabin tops are class legal since the stock Maxwells were single speed. You would have to write Bill Layton to find out if you can't find it elsewhere on this web site. As best I remember the bolt hole patterns for the Harkens are not same as the Maxwells. I took the primary winch bases off the boat and had a welder fill the holes with 2024 Aluminum and machined new holes for the Harkens. Use only a very experienced aluminum welder so that the bases do not distort from over heating. When positioning the primary Harkens note that Harken recommends a particular orientation to the direction from which the sheet is pulling. Note also that the two of holes closest to the centerline of the boat have bolts that go all the way through the deck to hold the winch and the base to the deck. You have to align the winches as best you can to satisfy both requirements. You will have to fill the old cabin top holes with resin and filler before drilling new holes and you may have to do a little gelcoat work to enlarge the base slightly. See gelcoat discussion at Laser28.com for more information on gelcoat. I tried to keep the location of the aft most part of the winch the same for the cabin top winches, keeping only the aft hole from the Maxwell hole layout as best I remember. The best pricing I have found for new winches is at Rigging Only (http://www.riggingonly.com/). These winches work so much better than the Maxwells (in particular the self-tailing mechanism) you will most likely wish you had done this long ago.

Hope this helps.

Bill