Winches

[c_witch]

Hiee all,

Firstly, the keel winch is toast on our boat. I have looked at a number of ramps that I expect we will be launching from. It seems as though most will not allow us to get back far enough to float the boat all the way up onto the trailer. I am therefor thinking about taking the current single speed winch off the trailer and using it for the keel winch. I then think that replacing it with a 2 speed winch might be anvantagous due to having to winch the boat up onto the trailer. We do have roller bunks so it should come up fairly easily but a 2 speed might make it that much nicer of a chore. Question is what capacity should I be looking at. Out boat is about 2500 lbs dead weight.

I'm also thinking of mounting the keel winch inside the cabin and having the cable run out thru the aft cabin bulkhead and running over a 2 or 3 inch pulley and down into the cable tube for the keel cable. Idea's ??

Happy Sailing,
Brina

 

[Merlin Clark]

Brina,
I had one boat that had some kind of brake on the winch (Catalina 22) that held the drum in place when you let go of the handle and another boat that had a regular trailer type winch- no brake (Ensenada 20).
The winch on the Ensenada got away from me (accidentally let go of the handle) and I can still hear the thumping my hand took when the handle beat the crap out of my hand. Felt like it broke some bones.
Once was enough of a lesson to pay attention to the handle when adjusting the keel but it could have been worse, might have been the wife or a kid that this happened to.
I would only use the braked type of winch.

 

[dscribner]

Brina,

My boat is about 4000 lbs loaded and I use whatever winch was on the trailer. It seems to me that the 2 speed winches only come in heavy duty anyway. I'd say, find one and buy it. Especially with rollers. With my boat, I think I used the lower speed only once. I don't know about the brake thing. No, I mean I don't know what it is. My winch has a pall that only allows the drum to travel in one direction. Would that be considered the brake?

 

[Bob McL]

A BRAKE winch is completely different from a trailer winch. There is no pawl to lock and if you let go of the handle mid way, it will not unwind and brake your hand or arm. Look for a brake winch at Northern Tool on line or at your Northern Tool store. I also found one at Harbor Freight, but have the one from Northern to control my swing keel. I did use the one from Harbor on the mast raising system though, and can stop at any point and go untangle a shroud if necessary and the mast stays just where I left it.

 

[Timo42]

Dutton-Lainson makes the brake winch it isn't expensive, especially compared to a broken hand, which is what a pawl winch will get you if you use it on a keel. My old winch was messed up by the p/o, he had a screwdriver stuck in it to hold it up, it got away from me once, thought the keel was going to come off when it hit bottom.

 

[LloydB]

I agree with others as I had replaced my keel winch with a paw type and was OK with that until it got away from me(bloody story). Now its due for replacement with a break winch even tho it's near new.

 

[Douglast]

i replaced my keel winch with an electric one...same mounting base..