Fairlead - deck mounting

Fairlead - deck mounting in a 10 mm diameter hole. An efficient, economical and versatile alternative to the metal fairleads ref 60E, 60C & 60S. Made of hard wearing acetal this fairlead is designed to be securely bolted down to a deck. Apply a smear of silicone sealant or silicone grease to the upper face of the nut and the underside of the upper part before assembling into the deck. It permits the incoming and outgoing lines to adopt any angle. The 1.0 mm dia hole works with 55 kg Dyneema ref D55 or lighter lines. Drill out the hole to 1.2 mm dia if 75 kg Dyneema ref D75 if heavier lines are to be used.

To prevent a slack main sheet or headsail sheet from being trapped between the return line and the fitting you can add an inverted U shaped piece of wire through the deck as shown in the thumbnail view. A small patch of tape or deck patch material over the fitting helps to further reduce water ingress.

This item is NOT designed, intended or suited for use on the main load bearing output line from a drum winch. It has much larger friction, by a factor of about 10, compared to a SAILSetc block, item 61-010. Because of this its use in this application degrades the power of your winch output by about 33%. When the sheet load is at a maximum its use is likely to cause stall, prevent speedy sheeting in and endanger the winch motor.

Alternative well designed systems are described on the download below.

Downloadable document - Fittings for drum winch systems