24 April, 2000

Suzy wrote this letter to Simpson-Lawrence (now Lewmar) - Ed.

Imagine my disappointment... After several telephone conversations with Ev in technical support, after receiving a dozen or so pages of technical info via fax from Ev, after ordering the Simpson Lawrence electric windlass that had all the features we wanted, after receiving both the reversing solenoid and breaker panel we had also ordered, after tearing out the old windlass and beginning the modification of our anchor locker to accommodate the new windlass, after selling off the old 5/16ths proof coil chain (even though it was in fine condition but wouldn't fit the new windlass) at the Encinal Yacht Club's annual swapmeet on April 15th, only after all these events was I informed that the windlass I had ordered had been discontinued last year.

Even then, it was only through my persistent attempts to find out where the hell my windlass was after 2 & 1/2 months that I was actually told. Rhonda, in the ordering department at Svendsen's Boat Works in Alameda, CA (I work there, too), made numerous calls and initially we were told "next week". This went on for 3 weeks. After that, her calls were simply not returned at all. Finally, I asked Michael Tosse in Commercial Accounts if maybe he had any clout with your company and could find out the status of my order. I can only presume that his call eventually forced someone in your organization to bite the bullet and tell me the truth. Beth's name was bandied around at this point so I asked to speak with her personally. Two messages have been left for her to that effect and still I have received no return call.

I've been taken advantage of and lied to. No options have been offered - no apologies have been made.

I had the reversing solenoid and breaker panel returned to you until this issue is resolved.

Further, I want to say that the Anchorman 1000 Electric was always my first choice because of several of it's features that are not all available on any other manufacturer's windlasses without going well above our size range:

Is there anyone in your organization who has the honor & decency to right this situation? next log entry previous log entry

Our situation is not unique. Our friends Dave and Kathy bought a S-L windlass, returned it for warranty repairs and discovered (after the smoke cleared) that the unit had 24 volt windings instead of 12. It took a full week for Dave to get in touch with someone, and after some arguing about repairs, they sent him replacement parts for the wrong size windlass! Another friend Don had a unit fail after only several hours of use due to badly installed brushes. It took 3 round trips before he finally gave up, bought the replacement parts and repaired the unit himself, with much better results. Go to almost any on-line forum and ask about Simpson Lawrence and you will hear horror story after horror story: technical support that can't get things right, offshore and remote repairs that take months and many dollars. - Ken

Update: 1 May, 2000. We spent Sunday at Pacific Sail Expo and had a chance to talk with the Lewmar rep (depending on who you talk to, Lewmar bought Simpson-Lawrence, or the other way around. A press release says that Lewmar was acquired by Scotland based Clyde Shipping, the parent of Simpson Lawrence). The rep was very apologetic. Based on information from the rep, and crawling around on the boats at the show, we were able to confirm that the Anchorman 1000 is original equipment on new Hunter 380's. So we're somewhat back to square one.

Update: 1 December, 2000. Fast forward: One of the V.P.'s for S-L literally walked around their warehouse in Connecticut and assembled the components that make up an Anchorman 1000 and shipped it to California. Over the summer we completed building the new deck and the windlass installed without any problems. As far windlass installs go, it was pretty painless. That included cutting 3 ~3" holes through the deck (one for the gypsy drive, two for hawse pipes), at an angle, through 2 halves of a 2" block of UHMW plastic base, also cut at angles. We also installed more than 60 feet of 00 tinned copper cable, a reversing solenoid, a 50amp breaker and a custom built remote control. We might have a small problem with the gypsy clutch slipping more than it should, but we're still doing more testing with that.

Update: 13 March, 2001. We reversed the direction of the chain around the gypsy, and the clutch stopped slipping. Everything is working now. When installing this unit, be very careful about choosing which way you route your chain. The unit only lifts in one direction.

Copyright © 2000
Ken Mayer