By about 1832 the old method for turning the windlass drum by handspikes was improved upon, no doubt because of the increasing use of chain cable. This was effected by an invention whereby two travellers with ratchets turned iron cogged rims each side of the pawl rim, by alternately moving up and down, the motion being supplied by thwartships hand levers pulling purchase rods (46). This arrangement remained in common use for large ships until the late 1850s, and indeed into the present century on some vessels. Other closely similar ideas followed, including one in which each traveller was rotated by pulling on levers rather like the old handspikes but without the necessity of withdrawing them after each pull. Some of the larger American clippers increased the manpower of the thwartship hand lever type by using a short centre bitt with the crosshead rocker close to the forecastle deck level. From the crosshead a long iron shaft ran along the deck in bearings and from it about three additional sets of levers were angled upwards, thereby enabling more men to operate it.

  About the same time that the hand lever windlass with traveller came into use, cable compressors were introduced as an improvement on the chain hooks to hold the cable in addition to the windlass. These, were heavy iron pads with grooves along their centres, fixed to the deck just inside the hawse holes or pipes. The chain cable led over the pad and could be locked in place by dropping a thick, hinged iron bar over the flat of a link and into a slot" The final design of windlass was thought out in general principle by John Avery in 1855, but brought into production by two well known manufacturers Harfield and Emerson Walker in 1858-60. It was operated by a capstan with bevel gears (A very's had levers on a vertical shaft) , and the old wooden barrel was replaced by strong metal cable lifters over which the cable fitted snugly into shaped recesses. The earliest form is shown on the drawing of the patent windlass and was considerably elaborated later by the addition of friction brake drums and eventually by a steampowered drive from a donkey boiler. This, however, was just after the end of the British tea clipper period. The American tea clippers kept to the wooden barrel type as they were out of the trade by the time the patent windlass was in vogue.

  With the older form of wooden windlass, the anchor cable led some distance aft along the deck, perhaps as far as the forward deckhouse, and then went down to the cable locker in the hold through a chain or navel pipe. The deck planking under the lead of the cable was thickened or covered with sheathing boards. The patent metal windlass sometimes had this arrangement also, but as the cable only led over the gypsy once, it was held down on it by passing under an iron deck roller just aft of the windlass. When the patent metal windlass was used the more usual arrangement was to have the navel pipe immediately under the gypsy so that the cable went over the top and then straight down to a chain locker situated nearer the bow.