Replacing the Composite Collar on a Barlow 25 Winch by Brian Stuttard

The genoa sheet winches on my 1985 Seahawk, Lady Sinclair, are Barlow 25. A few months ago the starboard winch black composite collar, which forms part of the drum, developed a small radial crack which began to expand, clearly it would eventually fail.

A search on the internet established that Barlow no longer exists. A further search for a second-hand Barlow 25 had no success. The specification for the Barlow 25 is available on line but I could not find a winch which would match it at a reasonable price.

After a further search I found that Bar- low had been absorbed by The Austral- ian Yacht Winch Company sometime in the past, and their website is www. huttonwinches.com with the email address, sales@huttonwinches.com.

It transpired that they could supply a Barient collar machined to fit the Barlow 25. I dealt with Allen Hutton who asked for the dimensions of my collar which I supplied and after further exchanges I ordered two collars costing a total of A$190, (£109) delivered to Jersey in less than a week.

The old collar was a tight fit on the drum and even in its damaged state was difficult to remove, the new collar was a loose fit. Further discussion with Allen did not explain this difference but he did explain that it was usual to secure the new collar to the drum using Araldyte or a similar two part adhesive. To gain access to the area of the drum where the adhesive was to be applied requires the top cap to be removed. The maintenance information on the Barlow 25 requires a special tool to allow the 3/16” Allen screw which secures the top cap to be released. This would appear to be a winch handle with a hole through the centre which can prevent the winch from turning whilst the screw is released with the Allen key inserted through the hole. Without this tool I found it difficult to stop the winch from turning when I tried to turn the screw.

My solution was to lock the sheet in a cleat, several turns round the winch, extend the sheet to the port winch, use
this winch to tighten the sheet as far
as possible and cleat off. This locked

the starboard winch and prevented it from turning. The Allen screw was then removed and the top cap lifted out using a winch handle. Care must be taken when lifting out the top cap because one or more of the three ‘black bearings’ may be lifted with it and then fall from the cap. If one of these were to fall overboard that would be a new ball game!

A thin film of two part adhesive was then applied to both collar and drum surfaces, the two fitted together and left for the adhesive to cure. The top cap was then re-inserted with the two pawls held in place to allow entry and the Allen screw fitted and tightened.

It is early days and our cruising has been restricted by Covid but the replacement seems to be working fine.