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The city of Paducah, Kentucky is the perfect river-town pit-stop for Ohio River cruisers. With the installation of their new transient boat...
Our team at Dockwa is stoked to be collaborating with the Salty Dawgs Sailing Association (SDSA), bringing real cruiser stories to life in The Running Fix Newsletter!
If there’s one thing seasoned sailors know, it’s that cruising isn’t just about stunning anchorages and smooth passages... it’s about the community that shows up when things go sideways. Gear fails, plans unravel, and sometimes the most memorable adventures begin with a problem no cruiser wants to face.In this story of Cruisers Helping Cruisers, Stephen and Dawn of S/V PILAR share a tale that perfectly captures the spirit of life on the water: a failing windlass, a looming deadline, and the kindness of fellow cruisers who turned a stressful moment into a reminder of what makes this community so special.
Cruisers Helping Cruisers: The Windlass Chronicles
By: Stephen Bell – S/V PILAR
(https://sailingpilar.com)
One of the most important capabilities on a cruising boat is the ability to anchor down. We all know it. Once we make our passage to the destination we’re anchoring every day and sometimes more than once a day. When you have a 55-pound anchor and 300’ of chain, that's a lot to lift when it’s time to weigh anchor. So, the anchor windlass is key to staying put when you get to that stunning anchorage in the azure clear waters. But equipment fails. And ours did. Dawn, being in charge of the anchor, noticed a slow decline in the performance of our windlass. She kept saying it was “acting funny”. Slowing down, changing speed from fast to slow. And I, Stephen (Captain and Chief Mechanic), ignored her cries. I went along the route of “MIWGBBI”(Maybe it will get better by itself). And you can imagine how that worked out for the Chief Mechanic.
The last time Dawn weighed the anchor she said she would not put it down again cause it’s not coming back up. Now we’re in a jam. The windlass motor had given her last lift. Luckily there were some mooring balls available nearby which we took while we figured out what’s next. Stephen went to work on locating a new windlass motor and a means of getting one flown in from a dealer. This is a difficult, expensive and time-consuming purchase. Meanwhile Dawn, social media master, put out an APB on multiple networks including the Salty Dawg app that we needed a windlass motor and the specs required for our Quick windlass.
Low and behold she got a response. Right in the same anchorage was a boat who had a spare on board. S/V “Fly The Coop was generous enough to “loan” us their spare windlass provided we could return it to them at Scorpion Marne in Cape Canaveral upon their return there in (6) months. We picked up the windlass motor from them, gave them a nice bottle of wine and the promise to make good on the return of their windlass motor as specified. We returned to our boat and had a working windlass in an hour. That saved us at least (2) weeks and great expense to get another windlass motor flown to our remote location.
This was a huge favor by a fellow cruiser. We’re so indebted to them for the “loan” of their windlass. We had a great friend in Cape Coral Florida, so we shipped their spare motor to him, and he hand delivered it to Fly The Coop upon their arrival to Cape Canaveral. We are forever indebted to Fly The Coop and we now have our own spare windlass motor on board.
Happy sailing. Or better yet, hassle free anchoring!
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