Angelique’s crew has been painting up a storm ... almost everything has been painted up and looking good! Hope to have the winter cover off this week.
For the past 7 years Rick and Scott (Angelique shipmates) have been coming up for a couple of days in the spring to help with projects. One of their favorites is to work on our hydraulic powered windless. Angelique's anchor windless was looking and acting tired last season and was not running smoothly. You have to understand that the windless itself dates back to the late 1800's; it was not new when Angelique was built in 1980.The hydraulic take off was added in 1993, to the relief of our guests and crew who would hand crank the anchor up till then.
Besides our guests and crew needing relief, decades of using the windless wore it out ... worn shaft, worn bearings and bushings, etc. Unfortunately we couldn't go to "Windlasses Our Us", so we did the next best thing: we sent the windless to Howard, a clever machinist, over the winter and he replaced the shaft, made new bushings and bearings so the windless was like new. We also replaced the pawl post (big chunk of wood) to mount the reconditioned windless to.
With the expertise of Rick and Scott we installed the new machinery last week (pictures below). With luck, it will merrily crank up Angelique's anchor for many more decades to come.
Old Windless
Old Windless
Scott and Rick
Scott and Rick Tweaking
Reconditioned Anchor Windless Installed and Ready to Crank Up the Anchor in Smooth Style Once Again!
Angelique Covered for Winter -- Soon It Will Come Off!
