Windlass - Different Uses of Windlass

Different Uses of Windlass

• During the Middle Ages the windlass could be used to raise stones during the construction large buildings such as in Chesterfield's Crooked Spire church.

• By the Late Middle Ages most European crossbows employed a windlass as a cocking mechanism, which helped to pull heavier crossbows, but were used in England as early as 1215.

• Windlasses are sometimes used on boats to raise the anchor as an alternative to a vertical capstan (see anchor windlass).

• The rod or stick used to tighten a tourniquet in surgical procedures is called a windlass.

• The handle used to open locks on the UK's inland waterways is called a windlass.

• Windlass can be used to raise water from a well. The oldest description of a well windlass, a rotating wooden rod installed across the mouth of a well, is found in Isidore of Seville's (c. 560–636) Origenes (XX, 15, 1-3).

• Windlass 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. 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'.