Debbie and I replaced the windlass cable ends - 2011

 It was time to put water in the batteries. This is a pain in the ass. It is easy to do - it is the reminding ourselves that it needs to be done and planning it that is a pain.

July 2011 - Currently at Marina Kona Kai  Shelter Island San Diego, CA  

 It is a needless chore that is a constant pain. Next year we will get AGM batteries and no more storing special water and turkey type baster etc and keeping this schedule!

 The good thing is we have been needing to put new ends on the anchor windlass wires because we are going to anchor out this weekend.

  (We anchored out a few times before the re-power and the windlass worked well before we cut the cables shorter to the windlass.) 

We had bought a tool to do this at Harbor Freight. 

 That is because we did not want to pull the wires out and take them to a store to do it. We had bought the cables a little long (several feet) as we were still moving the batteries at the time.  So this tool maxes out at this size (2/0) and that’s OK because it is all we need it for. The cables are at there maximum length after setting up the house batteries and we had extra cable so we wanted to cut them to the size we needed not the full run length. 

 First striped the wires (already had cut them off) and then put on the shrink tubing. Then we put in the dies into the tool (tool dies are 00 but really only fit up to 2/0 all we need) and the put the end on the cable. 

 We applied the tool and started pumping the handle down until I could not do it anymore. 

The crimp seems very strong and we are pleased. 

Then we pulled up the shrink wrap (added dish soap to the second one and it was much easier) and used the heat gun to shrink it up. 

 Debbie made up some labels for the cables and "wa-la"...all done. We are ready to anchor again! Only took about six months to do this as we were re-powering etc and had no need to do this project. Now we can sell off the tool and put a check mark on this completed project!