Islander 270 Windlass Upgrade

Fixit · Jun 11, 2023

my lewmar profish is in the forward oem location. with 280ft of 1/2" pleight and 50 ft of 1/4" chain I have to have someone tend the line as it comes in or it jams up. I wish it was mounted on the hatch more to the rear. would make it easier

Hookup1 · Jun 11, 2023

Fixit said:
my lewmar profish is in the forward oem location. with 280ft of 1/2" pleight and 50 ft of 1/4" chain I have to have someone tend the line as it comes in or it jams up. I wish it was mounted on the hatch more to the rear. would make it easier

I have similar setup only Islander. The ProFish is mounted on my anchor rope locker. It works ok but be careful that you don't rip it out. Did that once and had to rebuild.

Problem isn't where it's mounted.

I had lots of problems with getting the windlass to swallow the 8-plait rope to chain splice. After a a few years of experimenting I finally got it to work. Eventually I went to a hybrid half splice back down the chain and a half splice up the chain.

I had read about this 1/2 and 1/2 splice but could not find a how-to example. It's not that difficult to do. Look at examples of "back down the rode" and "up the chain" splices first. Tie off the rode 18" back. Separate the 4 groups of line. Separate each group and mark one "up" and the other one "down". You are going to splice one strand from each group "back" down the rode and splice the other strand from each group "up" the chain. When done put under your foot and roll it to flatten it out. Be sure to use wipping thread to secure the ends and some liquid wipping. It may not feed 100% the first few times. Anchor up with it and stretch it a few times and should be fine.