Windlass free fall…

Although I started to get familiar with my Ideal Windless about 2 weeks prior to the beaching of the Viking I was unable to locate a handle for it onboard; ordered one and received incorrect one for the windless model so awaiting the correct reshipped one. Hope we eventually hear the specific cause of the auto fire system failure.

I see that Pascal already answered that, but I was wondering the same.
In my current boat (with vertical winch and no brake), I also power down just out of laziness, to avoid taking out the handle and play with the clutch.
But in my previous boat, whose old school horizontal winch had wheels for both the clutch and the brake, I never, ever powered down.
I just opened the clutch and controlled the descent with the brake, job done.
Very nice system, I miss it!

The Ideal windless is just a straight piece of straight stock long enough to go through both hole and give you some leverage. Gonna have to try mine which is indeed in a step locker and see if it really works. We always power down as we never anchor in more than 20-22 feet of water mostly less.

Found picture on internet. Hope that helps

Thanks for the info. Still waiting for the replacement they confirmed this AM they shipped. Is yours also 110 v. ? Does the the "handle" loosen a clutch or only provide leverage to manually turn it ?

Mine is 12 volt. I think it loosens the clutch but to be honest I have owned boat for 5 years and never used it.

Guess we'll both soon learn as it appears the Viking grounding was a "wakeup call" for many. Previous boat had a Good FD windless which provided free drop simply by holding the down switch for about 10 seconds. Problem was it was only for rope which had to be a medium lay so not too stiff to not pay out, and not to soft to be chewed up, so I always used an oversized anchor.

I think this answers your question. If you would like pm me your email and I will send you the pdf of the instructions on operation and maintenance.

Bill

Can't be positive on this specific model, but in all other vertical windlass I came across, the handle can do either one or the other, depending on rotation.

I think you are correct. Loosen or tighten the clutch.

Should have sent this part of instructions about the wildcat operation.

Handle arrived. Seven turns and the very top portion unscrews and comes off but no evidence of either free fall or anything else as a result. Got too dark out so will explore again tomorrow.