WINCH SERVICE

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HISTORY

Harken acquired the Italian winch company, Barbarossa, from brothers Luca and Tony Bassani. It wasn't long after this that Harken aluminum winches became the winch of choice.

We knew if we got into the America's Cup winch game, we'd really have to commit ourselves. A longstanding friendship between Auckland-based Harken distributor John Street and New Zealand syndicate head Sir Peter Blake opened the door for Harken. When talking with him, he asked us:

Sir Peter Blake - "Can you guarantee your winches will be successful?"

Peter Harken - "We can't guarantee anything other than that we'll work our butts off around-the-clock to keep you sailing."

Our winches had carbon-fibre drums (an industry first), and were much lighter than the competition's. Blake also liked the idea of our direct, honest approach and commitment to service and he took a chance. New Zealand won the Cup. It was the first time in modern Cup history that one company had provided complete deck hardware and winch packages to both America's Cup finalists.

WINCH SERVICE

Both Deck and Captive Reel Winches must be visually checked and maintained at the beginning and end of every season of sailing or racing. After inspection all worn and damaged componence should be changed out. In particularly severe applications and when the winch is operating at its peak performance, checks and lubrications of gears should be carried out at the end of each day’s racing.

Periodic proactive maintenance must be carried out regularly. Lack of adequate maintenance will unfortunately shorten the life of the winch, can cause serious injury and also invalidate the winches warranty. Maintenance of winches must also be carried out exclusively by specialized personnel.

At Harken ProCare we are happy to be able to support you in all your Harken Service requirements. By utilizing our global network of factory trained and Authorised Service Agents we can organise and carry out services and maintenance programs on all Harken Winch products.

We can also work with you to optimise your systems and look at potential upgrades. Every service will be accompanied by a full ProCare Service report. Our aim is to produce a consistent global service run by factory trained Senior Technicians.

Deck Winch Service Procedure

Firstly a online ProCare Service report sheet will be allocated to each winch. This report stays with the winch throughout the service and is a way of monitoring the work carried out. It is also used to photography log the overall condition of parts and all parts used within the service.
To start the service, all winches are removed from the boat. The winch bases are left in place, cleaned and inspected.
All components are then carefully placed in labelled transportation boxes and moved to the workshop area.
The winches are then fully disassembled. All metal parts are separated up from any other plastic components. This helps speed up the cleaning process.
Once parts are cleaned, they are washed through with clean water and dried.
All parts are then meticulously inspected and measured to determine any wear or damage.
Photos are taken and placed directly into the service report to help monitor the condition of componence and to help proactively replace parts are required.
Once the winches are cleaned and inspected, all pawl springs and plugs are replaced as standard.
We rebuild each winch in the workshop, re lubricating and assembling them upside down into the housing. This protects the componence and speeds up the installation process onboard, meaning less disturbance to the yacht and crew. Each fastener will then be torqued to the required level and a strike marked, this strike mark indicates the thread lock that has been applied to the fastener.
Once reassembled the winch will be tested in each gear and verified.
A ProCare Service label is also added to the housing, this indicated date of service, technician as well as gives a QR link to the online report.
After the full service is complete the reports will be placed on the yachts ProCare Dashboard. A password protected online resource which houses all the Yachts equipment information and Service records.