A turn for the better. (Lewmar 24 service)

I spent about three hours cleaning and lubricating one of the 30 year old Lumar 24 winches off the boat ready to either sell or refit it. Much of the time was faff: wandering back and forth to the garden to wash parts in paraffin, etc. But there was a job I had to ask the Internet about and since I didn't find a good answer, here is an uncharacteristic tutorial.

How to get the shaft key out of a Lumar 24 winch.
Here are a couple of pictures showing first the key and secondly the hole it fits. I didn't think to take a picture while it was stuck, and I was too greasy during reassembly.

The advice received from the web suggested levering the key using something thin. Nope. Doesn't work. I tried that and broke off the tail of a Swann Morton blade in the gap. The technique is to hit it - more precisely to drift it out from one side. I would have to recommend the use of a"soft faced drift", realistically half a clothes peg or the like, but I have to admit I used a cross-head screwdriver that I hit with a substantial pair of pliers.

The rest of the job was simple and self evident, although I have heard tell of folk struggling with the initial split ring. Just hook the tapered end out of the slot with a fine screwdriver, or a finger nail if you have any, and then chase the ring from the slot by following the gap created, clockwise until the whole ring is free of the slot and falls over the gunwhale.

I must add a bit of advice to those of you who consider winch maintenance to be a simple question of adding an extra layer of grease every year. Do take the time to strip down and clean from from time to time. The original grease stuck to the main spindle was doing very little good after 30 summers of heat, sailing seasons, water, grime and hair. I found it to be a gentle pleasure handling such a well made device of stainless steel and brass, especially now it has a single brand of clean grease and light oil on the pawls.

After all this service, the signs of wear are minimal. A bit of a shine on the outsides of the pawls, a little patina where the rough cast faces have ingrained oil stains. These mechanisms were only removed to obtain the ease of self-tailing replacements. I may yet decide to use one to replace the main winch since these 24s are dual action.

Electromechanical empathy

I am of the generation that lived through the emergence of the CD player as the dominant vector of music reproduction in the home; stuck then somewhere between the gramophone and the Spotify era. Brothers in Arms was not my first disc; probably my third.

I still use my venerable Technics SL-P220 attached to a tuner/amp of a subtly earlier time in my dining room.

The news, already absorbed from a BBC iPlayer radio app, had saddened me, as it has so frequently this year so far. I thought to regain some cheer by playing the Madness Terry Wogan jingle from disc 2 of The Business over breakfast. Uncharacteristically the machine took a half dozen attempts to actually play. I could only sympathise with how it felt.

Ducks in and out

A ferry was just leaving the ramp as I balanced first on one leg and then the other to don nautical clothing and boots behind the car. Carrying just a waterproof bag, oars and the pump I stepped down onto the pontoon to find the last week of rain in the tender, all six inches of it. Fortunately, this gave enough weight to allow the transom to overflow when the bow was lifted and I soon had the clear fresh water tipped into the muddy brackish water flowing out the river with the tail of the tide.

The breeze wanted to push me onto the moorings until I met the main channel, where I had to row back towards the line of boats to avoid the ferry terminal. Our yacht was fine, rain washed and secure. A cup of water in the bilges from wind-blown rain entering the vents, slightly low on electricity because the new orientation angles the solar panel poorly for the low winter sun.

Not much moving on the water, although it seems pleasant when the sun shines. As I ready the tender to return to shore the ferry looms back into view; shy of me today? I could have taken the same photo that I took two weeks ago, but without the ice.

Early not rising

From under covers the day looked gloomy; sounding still. A few early gates and cars, the imperative shouts of birds - too soon still to sing their love ballads.

The needy devices called out their morning pleas: junk emails, bank balances arriving, a single tuneful appointment.

Cinematic beams and fine droplets

Fine rain, settled gently in the earlier puddles, greeted me on the way home. Splashing as high as the screen. Mud run off the fields and fine aggregate deposited by ad-hoc steams, tracked by cars, stuck to the tarmac. Little used T-junctions worked the differential as tyres threw up this damp deposit, seeking the metalled surface beneath.

The sky was pale grey, bruised. Wind whispered and the headlights showed edges, hedges, posts and white lines. Approaching eyes glared through the mist and the beam helped a little before being soaked up and scattered by the damp air.

Reflectors signposted property boundaries, parked vehicles or day-glow clothing on dog walkers and cyclists; picking them out like the victims of thermonuclear accident or, with glowing highlights, like Tron people.

The edge of troubled weather

Yesterday evening was more calm and drier than most weather of late. Across the plain, a disused airfield, the sky was colourful. Lit and textured like a child's crepe paper stained glass christmas decoration. Yellow glowed through textured blues and greys, a celestial candle in the West that sank slowly towards a wooded horizon as I approached.

As storm "Gertrude" dances in the North of the kingdom we are spared her gratuitous violence, merely swooshed and swished by her skirts as she whirls up there. The trees in the garden shook this morning; some in apparent  mirth, some in anger and the birds kept to cover.

Trouble with waking

Fake dawn, moon lit, seeped through the curtains at five. The quiet gave it away and I checked the time, tried to remember how to sleep and lay there past the rattle of the first commuter train. Some time slumber crept back, relaxing the muscles' unaccustomed aches from Wednesday night badminton, until I woke. The arm stretching out for the alarm stabbed; sore shoulder, a touch of tennis elbow.

Floods mostly dissipated had left dampness which had frozen on the street and cars. Stabbed again as I scraped to the hum of warming engine and the blower trying to clear the glass. We joined streams of warming cars queuing for no reason but each other; flowing in and out of towns beneath the broadening pale blue.

The trouble with sleep

Too much chicken, too late, after a stressful day at work. My mind and guts wrestled the night away to the accompaniment of rain falling on stuff and wet stuff blowing about the garden, rattling windows, trying the doors and gates and driving trees to wild frenzy.

The village had grown about 20 acres of lake by morning and the journey to work required fording. I found a new waterfall.

Wet, mild air gives way to the 15 billion light-year stare

On Monday the edge of the new moon sank in the evening sky like the golden torc of a dead Viking, diving in the sea; like a spark of red-hot iron hammer-struck from a wrought edge; like the retinal burn of a whirled brand in the night. Afterwards the pure starlight condensed to crystal ice on the glass and steel structures. New quilts' mettles tested; no mourning for their geese.