Tag: Seager

New Crab Winches.

June 25, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Sorry it has been ages since I last posted – been a bit mad busy. There has actually been quite a lot going on in the way of charters and the Medway Match where we won our class and re-won the Cambria Cup. Perhaps one of my colleagues, reading this, might like to put pen to paper and furnish me with a Match Report. Or anyone else for that matter – if you were there and know what happened, we’d love to record it here for posterity.

The old Seager crab winches, now replaced

Meanwhile I have this nice piece from Boss of Volunteers, Basil on the subject of Crab Winches.

“Last winter, at the refit meeting, it was decided to have New Crab Winches made for SB Cambria. In the three years of operation since rebuild we have lost teeth from the winding drum gear chain on three separate occasions not always from the same winch. Twice they were inoperable, the last time with one tooth missing on the smaller sprocket, operation was rather worrying. Initially the thought was to replace just the gears, but we have frames damaged on two of the winches already so went for complete replacement.

Tim Goldsack has always been very helpful and speedy in sourcing and fitting spare parts for us; but to keep an engineless sailing barge competitive is challenging enough without the added worry of winch failure.
The new ones have been made by the fabricators to be pretty much identical to the old cast iron ones. They are, however , a couple of inches higher making use more comfortable. The frames are cut from steel plate and welded up to the same profile as original, as are the gear wheels. The shafts are of stainless steel running in sintered bronze bearings, the spreading bars are of steel.
The warping drums have been reclaimed from the original winches, and used in the new ones. These would have been very difficult to manufacture , additionally the frames are galvanised.
When the teeth went on the old cast iron it was possible to see casting faults within the metal, with these and the aging of the iron is the reason for them becoming more fragile. The new steel teeth will only wear not suddenly give out. So far operation has been good, but painting still has to be completed. The new winches only went on board the day prior to Cambria’s move out of dry dock thence to Gillingham Pier to start the new season of charters.”

Thanks for that, Basil.

In general, I should add, the Cambria is always in need of volunteers. There never seem to be enough of us about, and some of us are not the young, sprightly Spring Chickens we once were, so if you want to get involved you can probably choose an area you’d like, from painting and cleaning, to indoor ‘Domestic Goddess’ stuff changing beds between charter ‘guests’, to repairs and maintenance. The gang will probably yank your arm off in their enthusiasm to welcome you aboard. If you fancy this, then get in touch – either come and introduce yourself at the barge, or email us on CambriaTrustSecretary@live.co.uk .

New Crab Winches (and Twitter!)

April 24, 2014 /

New crab winch

Just a quick note to let you know we have gone a bit rash and spent some cash, replacing the old “crab winches” with new. The old ones, much restored and well used were possibly the original equipment and were from the ‘Seager’ foundry in Faversham, now long since gone out of business and replaced by a housing estate of the same name. These winches, which are mainly used to raise and lower the lee-boards but also have different gearing shafts etc for dolly lines and working with any other aft-end gear (vangs etc), were lovely old things but were constructed of old castings which have now become rather brittle. Let go a lee board a bit roughly and they would tend to shatter off teeth from the main sprockets which then meant you would jump that tooth and smash the mechanism up against the next good tooth and break that, till you had stripped enough teeth to make the winch unusable.

2nd new crab winch

In my own experience, we managed this in a Swale Match and had to come home, tacking up the narrow Swale with one of the lee boards permanently down, tacking board for board with Mirosa. Great fun but not ideal, and I was only the bowlin’ man. I was yards away from the cussing and swearing. You can repair these teeth with a good welder but they are never as strong, so the Trust decided to replace the entire winches with modern, new equivalent kit. I am promised some more detailed information on these but meanwhile a couple of pics to look at.

Meanwhile, I am trying to set up a Twitter account for those of you who follow such things. I will then post notices that there is a new blog post and any other info that comes to hand. Please respond or re-tweet as you think fit. I have also linked this to Facebook, so it may pop up there also. The account is headed @SB_Cambria . I tried to get the real deal, SBCambria but some guy in Rio de Janeiro has grabbed that one already, claims his name is Sebastian Cambia but he has never posted on Twitter. We’ll make do, I guess. Look after yourselves.

De-Rigging

November 13, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Painting by Lesley Everatt: Copied from Lesley’s Facebook Feed with permission

You may recall that back in August I posted on the subject of artist Lesley Everatt who had created a rather superb picture of the crew of the sloop ‘Spider T’ who were on board for the run up the Thames to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee River Pageant. That was the first time we ‘met’ Lesley. I have since got to know her better through the Facebook feed and have learned that she is (among other skills) a superb artist of both military aircraft – we have seen some lovely Spitfires, Lancs, Vulcan bombers as well as modern aircraft – and of maritime stuff. The latter particularly includes many traditional sailing work boats but had not, as far as I know, yet included any sprit-sail barges. Well, now she has. This is a lovely picture of Cambria coming up into the Thames followed by a Humber Keel. So far only the original is for sale and there are no plans to produce prints. You can follow Lesley on FB and contact her that way or ask here if interested.

Meanwhile, Cambria is now back in Faversham, moored on Standard Quay. She is being divested of her rig so that she can be covered for winter maintenance. The foresail and mizzen sail have been removed and Basil tells me they have been having some fun playing with main spars, with photographer Mr Brooks on hand. I am hoping for some good pictures to posts here. The bow sprit has been unbolted from the bitts up front and dragged inboard using the fors’l halyards to take the weight. The mizzen mast has been stripped of its boom and gaff poles and these are now stored below decks. A tackle on the sprit end was used to assist here. The Mizzen mast itself is in a forward opening tabernackle, so gets dropped forward onto the main hatch again using the sprit as a derrick to take the weight. We have fashioned a mast prop to give it a secure resting place. Finally the main gear will be lowered.

Work this winter will possibly also include the replacement of the old, cast Seager leeboard winches with modern galvanized steel ones. We have apparently been suffering from the brittleness of the cast sprockets on our existing gear and have in some cases had to sail with one or two teeth missing which is never a good idea – the winches tend to lose grip over the toothless bits, skid and crash violently into the remaining teeth, risking breaking those too, and, with having no engine, we obviously rely heavily on all our sailing equipment to get about and it’s not easy to beat to windward with a leeboard disabled. As I said, some pics of all this work as they become available.