Thought I better find out what was wrong with my DF65 “Illusion” after the sail winch stopped working half way through Race 1 last Tuesday.
The sail winch (although showing no signs of water ingress) has finally died after 7 years.Not a bad run I suppose!!
My original V2 DF65 “Smoke’n’Mirrors” was delivered on 24th September 2013 and that same original sailwinch has been used in 3 replacement hulls since then. The winch did have a rest for a couple of years while I was using a HiSpeed Digital Arm Winch in Smoke’n’Mirrors in the early years (RG65 classification – not DF65) but other than that it has performed flawlessly for all those years. Just shows what decent waterproofing does when sailing in salt water.
The motor still functions fine but the control board has no output. Time for the bin.
The replacement is a metal geared Digital sailwinch (from Kyle) which was purchased for the DF95 but never installed as the original one in that is still working also. Guess I will need to get another spare now, just in case.