How to use a Winch on a Sailboat
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
Winches, Lines, Grinding and Tailing
What we use winches for: Winches provide the mechanical advantage to hoist and trim the sails and running rigging on a sailboat. There are usually no powered winches. Depending on circumstances, there can be thousands of pounds of pressure on a line, so don’t be casual when working with lines and winches.
Grinding and tailing: The act of rotating the handle is grinding, pulling on the line being tightened is tailing. Because the winch won’t pull the line unless the line is tight on the winch drum, both actions need to occur simultaneously. Sometimes one person does both actions, sometimes it takes one person for each action. Thus the person pulling is the tailer, the person grinding is the grinder. One little joke we do from time to time (but not on races) is to get halfway through a tack and then not pull hard on the line. The grinder just keeps grinding but the sail doesn’t come in at all.
