It’s coming from where?

There’s good news and not so good news. Good news is the manufacturers of the windlass, Muir have stepped up and agreed to replace the crumbled gearbox and motor if I will pay for the shipping. Really appreciated as they have a three year warranty and we are at 3.5, they could have played hardball but fair play.

They are still convinced theres an electrical fault causing phenomena well known to sailors but less so to land folk called Electrolysis or its close cousin , Galvanic Corrosion: GC occurs naturally when two dissimilar metals touch while immersed in an electrolyte (e.g., seawater), causing the more reactive metal (the anode) to corrode and protect the less reactive metal (the cathode): Electrolysis requires an active, external electrical current—such as faulty wiring, poor grounding, or stray currents from nearby equipment passing through a fluid (seawater to rapidly oxidize and eat away at the metal. For those of you still awake, we have protective systems that were all checked by a marine electrician last winter and found to be good. The windlass is not connected to that system for the simple reason it’s not “immersed” and has only occasional contact with seawater. It is also not in the vicinity of any other equipment and only connected to the batteries by a dedicated cable.

So I’m not convinced but in my own interest I’ll do all the tests when the new unit is installed.

And there’s the less good news, it’s coming from Tasmania, a beautiful island off the coast of SE Australia and the true definition of “the other side of the world” from Brest, France so that’s not going to be an amazon style”next day delivery especially given EU customs clearance.

Hey Ho a sailors life for me, at least the wine is cold and cheap here..