View source for Windlass

{{Short description|Weightlifting device using pulleys}}
{{About||the tool used to raise paddle gear on canal locks|Lock (water transport)#Windlass ("lock key")|the specific ship's windlass|Anchor windlass}}
[[File:Turnbridge Liftbridge RLH.jpg|thumb|[[Turnbridge]] windlass lifting road bridge over [[Huddersfield Broad Canal]]]]
[[File:L-differentialwinde.png|thumb|200px|Differential windlass]]

The '''windlass''' {{IPAc-en|ˈ|w|ɪ|n|d|l|ə|s}} is an apparatus for moving heavy weights. Typically, a windlass consists of a horizontal cylinder (barrel), which is rotated by the turn of a crank or belt. A [[winch]] is affixed to one or both ends, and a cable or rope is wound around the winch, pulling a weight attached to the opposite end. The Greek scientist [[Archimedes]] was the inventor of the windlass.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sarton |first=George |author-link=George Sarton |year=1959 |title=A History of Science |volume=2 |chapter=Part 2, Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B. C. |page=123 |publisher=Harvard University Press, Cambridge }}</ref> A surviving medieval windlass, dated to {{nowrap|1360{{hsp}}}}–1400, is in the [[Church of St Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield]].<ref>{{cite web |publisher=BBC |work=A History of the World |title=Medieval Builders' Windlass |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/pB9o-yDFQPm4ZiMXxjZfQA |access-date=2 June 2024}}</ref> The oldest depiction of a windlass for raising water can be found in the Book of Agriculture published in 1313 by the Chinese official [[Wang Zhen (inventor)|Wang Zhen]] of the Yuan Dynasty ({{floruit}}&nbsp;1290–1333).<ref>{{cite book |last=Needham |first=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Needham |year=1986 |title=Science and Civilisation in China |volume=4, Physics and Physical Technology |chapter=Part 2, Mechanical Engineering |publisher=Caves Books, Ltd. |location=Taipei}}</ref>

==Uses==
* [[Vitruvius]], a military engineer writing about 28&nbsp;BC, defined a machine as "a combination of timber fastened together, chiefly efficacious in moving great weights". About a century later, [[Hero of Alexandria]] summarized the practice of his day by naming the "five [[simple machine]]s" for "moving a given weight by a given force" as the lever, windlass, screw for power, wedge, and tackle block (pulley). Until nearly the end of the nineteenth century it was held that these "five mechanical powers" were the building blocks from which all more complex assemblages were constructed.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hartenberg |first1=Richard |last2=Danavit |first2=Jacques |date=1964 |title=Kinematic Synthesis of linkages |publisher=McGraw-Hill |url=https://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kmoddl;cc=kmoddl;view=toc;subview=short;idno=kmod013}}</ref>
* During the [[Middle Ages]] the windlass was used to raise materials for the construction of buildings such as in [[Church of St Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield|Chesterfield's crooked spire church]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Medieval Builders' Windlass |publisher=BBC |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/pB9o-yDFQPm4ZiMXxjZfQA |access-date=September 11, 2012}}</ref>
* A windlass cocking mechanism on [[crossbow]]s was used as early as 1215 in England, and most European crossbows had one by the [[Late Middle Ages]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Engineering the Medieval Achievement-The Crossbow |publisher=MIT |url=http://web.mit.edu/21h.416/www/militarytechnology/crossbow.html |access-date=September 11, 2012}}</ref>
* Windlasses are sometimes used on boats to raise the [[anchor]] as an alternative to a vertical [[capstan (nautical)|capstan]] (see [[anchor windlass]]).
* The handle used to open [[Lock (water transport)|locks]] on the UK's [[Canals of the United Kingdom|inland waterways]] is called a '''windlass'''.
* Windlasses can be used to raise water from a [[water well|well]]. The oldest description of a [[Water well|well]] windlass, a rotating wooden rod installed across the mouth of a well, is found in [[Isidore of Seville]]'s ({{circa}}&nbsp;560–636) ''Origenes'' (XX, 15, 1–3).<ref>{{citation |last=Oleson |first=John Peter |author-link=John Peter Oleson |year=1984 |title=Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-lifting Devices. The History of a Technology |publisher=D. Reidel |place=Dordrecht |isbn=90-277-1693-5 |page=56}}.</ref>
* Windlasses have also been used in [[gold mining]]. A windlass would be constructed above a shaft which allowed heavy buckets to be hauled up to the surface.<ref>{{cite web |title=Albert Goldfields Mining Heritage |publisher=Outback NSW |url=http://outbacknsw.com.au/mining%20brief%20history.pdf |access-date=September 11, 2012}}</ref> This process would be used until the shaft got below 40 metres deep, when the windlass would be replaced by a "whip" or a "[[Whim (mining)|whim]]".<ref>{{cite web |title=Searching for Gold |publisher=Kidcyber |url=http://www.kidcyber.com.au/topics/goldsearch.htm |access-date=September 11, 2012}}</ref>

==Differential windlass==
{{See also|Differential pulley}}
[[File:Comparison_differential_pulley_windlass.svg|thumb|Comparison of a differential pulley, or chain hoist, at left, and a differential windlass, or Chinese windlass, at right. The rope of the windlass is depicted as spirals for clarity, but it is typically helices with axes perpendicular to the image.]]
In a '''differential windlass''', also called a '''Chinese windlass''',<ref name="Chinese windlass OED">{{OED|Chinese}} {{Registration required}}</ref><ref name="Morris">{{citation |editor-last=Morris |editor-first=Christopher |year=1992 |title=Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology |publisher=Gulf Professional Publishing |isbn=978-0-12-200400-1 |page=416}}</ref><ref name="Knight">{{citation |last=Knight |first=Edward H. |year=1884 |title=The Practical Dictionary of Mechanics |publisher=[[Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co]]}} "''Chinese-windlass'', a differential windlass in which the cord winds off one part of the barrel and on to the other."</ref> there are two coaxial drums of different radii ''r'' and ''r′''. The rope is wound onto one drum while it unwinds from the other, with a [[movable pulley]] hanging in the [[bight (knot)|bight]] between the drums. Since each turn of the crank raises the pulley and attached weight by only {{nowrap|{{pi}}(''r'' − ''r′'')}}, very large [[mechanical advantage]]s can be obtained.

==Spanish windlass==
[[File:SpanishWindlass2stick.jpg|thumb|Two Spanish windlasses on a bunch of sticks, in the starting position and tightened]]

A Spanish windlass is a device for tightening a rope or cable by twisting it using a stick as a lever. The rope or cable is looped around two points so that it is fixed at either end. The stick is inserted into the loop and twisted, tightening the rope and pulling the two points toward each other. It is commonly used to move a heavy object such as a pipe or a post a short distance. It can be an effective device for pulling cars or cattle out of mud.<ref name="torture">{{cite book|first=Terry G.|last=Jordan-Bychkov|chapter=Does the Border Matter: Cattle Ranching and the Forty-ninth parallel|editor1-last=Evans|editor1-first=Sterling|title=The Borderlands of the American and Canadian West|url=https://archive.org/details/borderlandsofame00ster|url-access=registration|date=2006|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=9780803218260 }}</ref> A Spanish windlass is sometimes used to tighten a [[tourniquet]] or a [[straitjacket]]. A Spanish windlass trap can be used to kill small game. An 1898 report to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about an American vessel captured by a Spanish gunboat described the Spanish windlass as a torture device.<ref name="senate">{{cite book|last1=Davis|first1=Cushman K.|title=Report of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations|date=1897}}</ref> One of the captives' wrists were tied together. The captor then twisted a stick in the rope until it tightened and caused the man's wrists to swell.

==See also==
*[[Differential pulley]]
*[[Hoist (device)]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{Wiktionary|windlass}}
*[http://www.inquiry.net/OUTDOOR/skills/b-p/windlass.htm Spanish windlass]

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Sailing rigs and rigging]]
[[Category:Mechanisms (engineering)]]
[[Category:Winches]]