About wire rope for the keel

Posted By: Greg CM26 Seattle CLM005771173
Date: 2/18/08 7:10p.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

In Response To: 4 generation of keel setup.... (link) (pic) (Steve, Pleiades, CM26, Albuquerque, NM)

Hey Steve, I read your post with interest, and the last sentence made it necessary for me to throw my 2-cent's worth in here. I'm still planing to install a 12V Harbor Freight 2,000 lb winch to haul my keel: could happen this Spring, or not. Others have done exactly that, and I have not heard any gripes yet. But there is a crucial issue, as you mentioned, that the Harbor Freight unit does not provide for manual back-up, at least not out of the box. But I just feel compelled to put this statement out there: a PROPERLY DONE wire rope installation will outlast the boat's lifetime, and your lifetime (assuming you survived), and the lifetime of everyone reading this. Every building over four or five stories high has an elevator in it that uses wire rope. Aircraft of all descriptions have been using wire rope to operate control surfaces for about a century now. Wire rope does an excellent job, but only if it's part of a properly designed system, which the native Clipper Marine implementation most certainly is not! Anytime you see "meat hooks" from a wire rope, you are seeing a cry for help. That wire rope is being abused!