Which winch

Can rust if exposed to moisture. Galvanized coating can wear off. Spooling Needs protection agains heat from winch brake. Prone to kinks that can make difficult to respool tidily. Breakage Can be field repaired. Does not store energy in case of breakage no whip backlash Cannot be field repaired.

Dangerous whip backlash when breaks under load. Exposure Susceptible to UV, chemical, heat and abrasion exposure.

Minimal to no impact unless exposed to water. Cost Moderately more expensive than steel. Less costly than synthetic based on diameter.

The Verdict? Which is best? View the Trailmaxx range of winches here Trailmaxx Winches Happy winching! Our Brands. We Accept. Follow us. In addition, aluminum requires more upkeep and is particularly prone to corrosion and damage from impact and stress. Straight bronze is very good, weathering to a classic greenish color that appeals to traditionalists. Normally direct drive with a gear ratio of winches are perfect for halyards, cunninghams, or main and mizzen sheets on small and mid-size boats.

It's better to buy one that ratchets, allowing you to crank the winch from both sides of the drum. This means that you can "push and pull" on the winch handle, rather than having to crank it through degrees in one direction. This is particularly helpful if you are unable to brace yourself against something to get your whole body into the cranking process. It's less tiring too! These are normally used as the primary sheeting winches and halyard winches on larger boats.

With both a high and low gear, these winches allow you to crank in ropes quickly to start with, then more slowly in a lower gear as the grinding becomes difficult.

Gear selection is made by reversing the cranking direction. If you get the placement right, it is possible to use one winch for multiple purposes. This allows you to buy one winch rather than several. However, we recommend that you carefully consider the different demands on the winch to avoid the difficult situation of trying to use one winch for several lines at the same time! These winches are generally more expensive, but they're worth it. They allow one person to crank in without needing another person to tail, or without trying to do the difficult job of tailing while cranking.

A lot of these winches are offered with spring-loaded, self-adjusting jaws that accept lines of different diameters. Larger boats may need a winch with a power ratio or higher.

In this scenario, you may be tempted to go for an electric model. Provided your craft is equipped to handle the amp DC power drain, there shouldn't be a problem. If you do decide on an electric winch, it's important that it has a manual backup in case of failure.

Some boats even have hydraulically powered winches. You can get electric winches with high and low gears. Despite 10" handles being the industry norm, primarily because of their comfort and the leverage they provide, you should consider an 8" handle for lighter conditions. Here, speed is more important than ultimate power, and an 8" handle allows for faster cranking.

As you can see from the formula for power ratio, the length of your winch handle is important. My Account Register Log In. Check Out. Accessories Accessories and Fluids. Air and Fuel. Air and Fuel Delivery. Air Compressors. Air Filters. Air Intakes. Air Intakes and Accessories. Automotive Lighting. Baseball Hats. Batteries and Accessories. Bed and Tailgate. Belts and Cooling. Body Styling.

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All I had to do was source the sled. Given I could alter the weight on the sled, both on the mechanically geared, moveable tray section as well as the front pad, it proved the ideal method to test the winches. It took half a day of trial runs to find the correct setting for the weights. Eventually we settled on a fixed weight of concrete at the front, combined with the sliding section set in place with two litre water containers.

Nothing would change across the testing for all seven winches in the test. We tested the pulling force — weight of the concrete and the actual sled, combined with the friction on the ground and the slope we were winching up — and we came up with an overall pulled mass of approximately five tonne.

For dead weight or an anchor point, there was the option of winching from my Troopy and tethering it to a tree, but the risk of chassis damage from twisting or stretching was too much. Instead, we copped a 6. We hitched a removable winch cradle — to which each winch was bolted — to slide into a hitch receiver on the mammoth telehandler. As suggested by some suppliers, we settled on a duty cycle of 60 seconds constant winching, followed by 10 minutes cool down, 60 seconds constant winching, 10 minutes cool down.

We repeated this process until each winch had pulled as close to 20 metres as possible. At the start and end of each second winching period, we recorded gearbox and motor temperatures with a non-contact thermal gun, minimum and maximum amperage draw with a clamp meter, as well as distance pulled with an electronic distance measurer — to aid in calculating winch speeds for each second session as well as an overall speed in metres per minute.

With this method, there could be no denying which winch pulled fastest, furthest, consumed the most power, or got the hottest. There is no reason to winch to destruction to test a winch; that is simply not how a winch should be treated in real life.

Setting up the correct weights to be hauled, with even, fair and repeatable conditions is the perfect way to test a winch and a great way to separate quality from crap. While we always adhere to taking as many safety precautions as possible in a real-life winch situation, this testing posed additional safety threats given we needed to be close to the winch to take motor current draw and temperature readings. I knocked up two walls of 12mm sheets of ply with relevant slots cut out to thread the winch rope through.

The walls were angled such that if a rope broke and flicked back at us, it would be blocked and deflected up and away from us. If anything were to break, the dampener would stop the heavy hook and arrest the dangerous rope re-coil.