Hi guys. I need another piece advice for my newly purchased Swan 37. I would like to replace the
winches at the rear of the cabin. They are really huge self tailing
winches and as far as I (or anyone I have asked about them) can tell, they were at some point added for the
jib sheets by someone who raced the boat in lieu of using the normal
jib winches. The way the blocks are arranged on this boat makes this possible. However I would rather use the normal
jib winches and replace these with something smaller so I can run some of the control
lines back to the cockpit. I can't use these oversized winches for this because the boat now has a dodger and the
winch handles don't clear it so they are pretty much useless.
My question is what size and type of winches are appropriate for this application? I'm not exactly sure what
lines will be lead back yet but assuming some reasonable shorthanded setup (halyards, reef
lines etc) what power would I need? Also I have read you should use single speed winches for this so they can be ratcheted. Is this really the case? It seems most of the single speed winches are pretty small.
In any case my boat's sail stats are:
I: 46.25 ft
J: 15.6 ft
P: 40.5 ft
E: 11.7 ft
Thanks