... this one time (at band camp) I was doing this regatta support rigging thing at SORC (now called Miami Race Week). I think it was in 2001 or 2 when I was working on a boat named Idler. This was a brandy new boat and they were having issues with their brandy new Lewmar carbon pedestal grinder that controls 4 different winches.

At every tack, the guys grinded in the jib and BANG! They heard this loud bang at every tack and didn't know why. After digging around and opening every part of those winches, I watched the drive belt (a simple motorcycle drive belt) go round down below as the grinder was working above. I noticed that the teeth on the belt and the gears didn't quite fit causing the belt to jump every 4 or 5 revolutions. At the dock it was barely noticeable but when loaded up racing it sounded like the boat was breaking.

No time to have a new gear made by Lewmar and fly it into the regatta so the quick fix was (you guessed it) Olive Oil. I was down below scratching my head and thought, lube. Lube should allow the teeth to slip in just enough so it wouldn't skip like it was when dry. I didn't have near enough lube to coat the whole belt so I thought, hey, there's Suzanne’s Gourmet Market right here at the dock, they surely have olive oil. Yep, olive oil to the rescue. It worked temporarily and lessened the symptoms for a while at least.

BTW, it also works well as emergency hydraulic oil and so also does Hawaiian Tropic Suntan Oil, Puritain cooking oil and the like... :)