A quite popular WHAT done it type of Mystery wrapped in an Enigma brought to you via this blog. What you will read below is all based in real-life, in real-time, by two very unsuspecting characters and a wonderful boat named Banyan.

Whom, may we add, thinks she's entitled to more than her fair share of new toys since we've been anchored in Simpson Bay, Sint-Maarten, the land of Everything.

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It was a dark and dreary and rainy type of morning when the cast of characters woke up,



Don't all WHATDUNNIT type mysteries start on a dark and dreary and rainy type of morning? In fact, it was so dark and dreary and rainy that you could barely see the Causeway bridge just abeam of us.



And when the Capt'N sleepily clambered into the cockpit, trying to not get wet as the rain pelted in sideways, this might have been what he would have seen behind him.



His eyes did a quick scan to triple check we were still held in place despite the incredible gusts that had both of us awake at all times during the night, turned the engine on, and went about making his lovely wife her morning cup of coffee.

And that is when the lovely wife, heard quite the noise as she was clambering out of bed.

She knew right away WHAT the noise was. But she didn't quite know WHY the noise was happening. And why now, of all times?

It was the sound of the windlass running away with the anchor chain !!

In that split second she thought perhaps we'd come un-anchored, and her honey had rushed to the bow, brave man that he was, in the gusting winds and pelting storm of sheets of cold, wet rain, to do whatever it was that needed doing. But no, he was coming down below, quite unaware of the noise.

"The anchor chain is running-away", I yelled excitedly, "Quick, the anchor chain..."

And for all the sailor-tekkie type of folk, the Capt'N repeated, as he ran forth "The anchor chain is heaving in?"

Now that, dear readers, is how the WHATDUNNIT mystery began.

The clues as we knew them were are as follows. There was no-one on the bow. There was no one playing with the remote control. The only clue was that the engine had recently been turned on. It was gusting and storming out, but abating, and we could see small wisps of blue as the storm dispersed.

And so the brave and intrepid Capt'N, put on his red-hatted type of hat, and went to work solving the problem. As we both knew we didn't want a malfunctioning, unfunctioning windlass in these stormy conditions, or any conditions, really.

The first suspect was the remote control. We'd been having a few issues with it in the last little while. The Capt'N had rewired it way back when. It worked fine. And then a few weeks ago, after the ShitStorm passage, the "down" button stopped working.



Which in the process of anchoring, we may all know, or might possibly guess, is the perfect button to stop working as it's much easier to drop the chain down manually, and push the "up" button when weigh-ing anchor, than vice-versa. And so life on Banyan continued as per normal, we just adjusted our "way of doing things", as one always tends to do, right?

After a few tests and trials, it was decided that we needed to buy a new remote control. Which required a trip to Budget Marine between the incoming and outgoing squalls.

While at Budget Marine, the Capt'N ran into Jack, from SV Kathrian who indicated that they had the same Remote Control and before spending some boat dollars, we were welcome to test ours, on his.

We did. It didn't work. Dead it was.

Back to Budget Marine to purchase the new one.



Which, when installed, also didn't work. Mm-hmm. No up-juice on the UP button. No down-juice on the DOWN button. Dead. Deader than a dead. The brand new remote control? Now what?

It was a sunny but gusty type of morning, as the Capt'n sat down to his morning coffee and analyzed some of this, to re-confirm some of the wiring, and re-wire his steps, in a logical, analytical type of manner.



You see, to complicate matters some more, Banyan has an Interloc system installed that requires us to have the engine on for a few minutes and producing amps and power before using the windlass, so that we don't, by accident bleed our batteries dry as we're anchoring/weighing anchor.

Which makes all the wires that much more complicated and confusing. Which, by the way, the Capt'N is itching to remove, as really, it's not necessary, or needed.

The next step in this Puzzle wrapped in an Enigma type of Mystery was to check the Solenoid Control Box.



Upon removal,as you can see for yourself, it all looked pretty beat-up and quite used.



The brave and intrepid Capt'N went on about taking it apart. One of the posts was crooked and loose. The contacts were checked and somewhat cleaned but before that became too long and tedious a process, and after a few mm-hmm's and mm-how's, it was determined that one of the solenoids was indeed defective.

And shortly thereafter we had two.



Would you believe that this time, there was no rain as he dinghied to Budget Marine, that the store was still open, and that we purchased the very last one of this kind on their shelf, perhaps even on this island? Phew.

Back to the process of installing and re-installing, wiring and re-wiring, screwing and re-screwing...

All correctly and properly done, turn the engine on... wait a few minutes, and then let there be...

Nothing. Nada. No juice. No UP, no DOWN, no noise, no movement, no nothing.

This, dear readers, was the culmination of two days of wiring and unwiring, swearing and cajoling, sweaty, laying upside down while installing, very large WTF moment.

Back to the beginning. Back to the charts, back to the diagrams, back to following the color-coded wires, back to listening to the clicks and clacks of the working solenoids.

Until the brave and intrepid Capt'N remembered that, earlier that day, he'd had a contact moment with some wires. Which led to a smile, which led to a "could it be?" query, which most definitively led to this,



Out comes the electrical box and we had ONE left in our stash, which was quite a good thing as it was now past five o'clock and Budget Marine was closed for the day.

It was quickly replaced. One last run up to the bow, one last crank of the engine, and just as the sun went down, and the tummies were growling for supper...

The juice to the UP button had the anchor chain whirring up through the windlass. And the juice to the DOWN button had the anchor chain purring back down.

Banyan should now be happier than a you know what in you know what. She's armed with a new remote control, and a new Solenoid Control Box.

And that dear readers is how that Mystery got solved and how this case got closed. And how this blog got wrote by the recently very active "go-fer" girl.

The Capt'N, now knowing the whole system is working, re-installed the old remote control just for "shits and giggles", and determined for a fact and without a doubt, that the Remote Control is somehow shorted-out in a permanent "power on" and UP position. Which is why our chain ran-a-way (or "heaved in") that particular wet and dreary and rainy morning. And why it promptly did it again as soon as it was re-installed.

So, riddle me this then, why was our remote control totally dead on SV Kathrian's windlass system, and yet running-away our anchor chain on Banyan? Might there be some more mysterious puzzles afoot ?

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Which all led me to wonder why the word "windlass"? This has been brought up a few times amongst friends, and I just had to google it.

As etymonline.com defines it, a windlass is : "device for raising weights by winding a rope round a cylinder, c.1400, alteration of wyndase (late 13c.), from Anglo-French windas, and directly from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse vindass, from vinda "to wind"."

Innaresting says she. Mmm-hmm, says he. Maybe it should be called a WINDLESS?