Our planned two weeks in San Diego is beginning to look like an unexpected month in San Diego. Seeing friends and catching up on things helps make it an enjoyable month, but we’d really like to be on our way again. The anchor windlass motor has been to three shops with the final diagnosis of “can’t get the parts to rebuild it” from all. Well, one said “eventually we could get the parts in maybe 6 weeks, maybe 12 weeks.” We ordered a new motor from the Ideal Windlass company almost three weeks ago. They’re telling us that they’ll be getting the motor (which must be modified to work in the windlass) next Friday and can ship the same day they get the motor in to their shop. Now, they’re not open on Fridays, but we won’t let that little detail deter us from believing that perhaps one of their loyal employees is going to come to the shop, modify the motor, and ship it out to us next Friday. Stranger things have happened.

Why not just get another windlass? Well, to pull up that heavy 1/2″ BBB chain (3 lb/ft) it takes a pretty hefty windlass and the cost of such a windlass would be anywhere from $6K to $12K. So, better to wait upon the motor. We do know of a fellow who modified the same windlass we have so that it operated on a hydraulic pump. Somehow the idea of having hydraulic fluid leaking all over the place doesn’t seem like a smart choice for us though. We’ll wait. So, what’s a few extra weeks in San Diego, anyway? We’re able to get things done here and the anchorages are very shallow requiring very little chain go out. So getting the chain up using a sheet winch isn’t too terrible here. But we’d prefer to have our full windlass back up and running. And it will be…in a couple weeks.