The generally reliable SmartWinch has reared it ugly head that will be a regatta killer. It is a control limits failure to the gearing system.
Please note on the Mystic scorecard that Jack Baldwin and I withdrew from the event; I was not able to sail Sunday and fell to 15th. Jack withdrew on Saturday and ended with 18th. Both of us lost proper sensing for control of the programming limits of the winch.
The cause at the moment is traced to the potentiometer (the small red barrel that connects to the gearing at the front of the winch. This pot reads the gear settings and report the positioning to the mini computer that holds your settings. The shaft on the pot to the little pilot gear can and now is known to slip. When it does the winch will become erratic and mostly likely will exceed programmed limits. When the computer recognizes a loss of programming performance, it will communicate with a single beep every 15 seconds (about).
In my case it broke two winch lines and ruined the spindle on the dual Pekebe block at the end of the boom on the system board. I have never seen this before or heard this single beep nor heard of this failure. My winch is the 280DL and has been in operation since 2007 and is the winch shown on the building site when the first SB was assembled.
I turned this over to Dave Ramos at CPM and he reported the findings. He has burnished the shaft and applied CA over the scored area. He will also be advising Rob Guyatt of this issue so some information from him is certain to be received.
If this matter has occurred in the past and was reported, I miss it. So, here it is.