Thread: Powered sheet winch

I hope a knowledgeable person can help Bodgy out here 'cos I'm interested in this subject too.
Regards Rob J.

Hi Bodgy, hard to comment on the price of the electric motor without knowing what you have been quoted, but my gut feeling is that it seems a bit dear. re the hydraulic motor once again hard to comment but at $1600 it would have to be something special. Re using your excisting Hydraulic system it all comes down to how much power you have available. If you have enough flow, pressure and HP one option is to fit a Diverter valve and use your exciting DCV.
The idea of a capstan winch in the cockpit has merit. You say that you have clutches on out hauls, halyards etc, do you mean jammers? . Using a capstan on haylards with jammers would be fine in my opion, however on the sheets I Would be inclined to wrap the sheet winches in the usual fashion and use the capstan to take up the slack. Is this what you were thinking.
I will let someone smarter than me comment on power cosumption, but I think a correctly mounted capstan would be great to set sails while motoring, or getting away from an ankhorage. So what does a 9 tonne boat look like. My 10 tonnes is a 32' motor sailer.
Ian L
"Wavedancer"

Also interested in a powered winch.

Quoted price does seem steep indeed. Thinking aloud - wondering whether some purpose designed 'deck winches' would have electronics to sense tension and other things in order to protect sheets/halyards from breakage through operator error. Maybe also features like "soft starting" and auto speed adjust. "Electronic Intelligence" will always bump up the price.

Speaking for myself, after recent motorcar gearbox problems were eventually traced back to a bad capacitor in the "transmission computer", I have arrived at the stage where I would nearly always opt for the "dumb" version of any device.

Thanks for the reponses.

Wavedancer, the clutches are jammers and I'll run all lines around their original winch to take the strain off the capstan and give a fair lead. I don't need to worry about halyards, except for a small inner foresail as the main has in mast hydraulic furling and the genoa is on a furler. Only sheets, mainsail outhaul, furler line and pole up/down etc.

Attached is a picture of Musique, my South Coast 36 which actually measure closer to 40 feet. 9 tonnes fully loaded for cruising - water, food and fuel

Karsten. I could find no sign of any intelligence in the winch electronics. I agree that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong so all systems can revert to manual if needed.

There follows my conclusion (from a different forum):

For what its worth I'm finally going for the Muir in line capstan. I managed to source a compatible 12 motor and gearbox for a fraction of the winch manufacturers RRP, but I would have had to have the drive shaft machined and would have needed another winch, as without adding a clutch an existing winch would not hand crank.

I also found a hydraulic motor for a few hundred dollars and for a bit more could have added the extra valves to my existing pump, however would still have needed a linkage mechanism. Could have powered an existing winch as with hydraulics, hand cranking would continue to function. Also found a hydraulic pump and reservoir for a few hundred dollars too. Eventually discounted this path as I couldn't really run the hoses without creating an eyesore, or some major cabin mods.

So for less than $1K I'll get a 39 metres a minute, 600 watt, capstan, max pull 160Kg complete with switch, mounting hardware and circuit breaker. OK its not self tailing and I'll have to crank up the last few feet of genoa by hand, but that's $3k cheaper than an electric winch!!

Knowing what I do now, if I ever fit out a yacht again, it'll be hydraulic winches all round.

I hope the above is useful for anyone contemplating a power winch solution and unwilling to pay an outrageous price

I'll report back on the efficacy once installed and running

The costs for electric and hydraulic winches are related to the amount of torque they need to apply and tolerate, plus doing so with considerable precision. Sheet loads can become quite high, so this means substantial gearing and lots of copper in the motor, not to mention bearings and all with fine adjustment. I've made electric winches on a few occasions, once using a 12 VDC cordless drill motor. If you have access under the winch, a 2:1 chain drive sprockets and drive can be arranged, to drive one with little effort, though thrust and shearing loads have to be addressed carefully.

There's a fair bit of out of sight engineering in the good units, though admittedly the costs are high at first glance. Once you spec up a motor for the loads, controls, safety features, attachments and machining, the cost looks a lot more reasonable.

It's not as simple as bolting an automotive starter motor onto the shaft and pushing a button. You want to be able to use it precisely, which requires a good bit of control. This is also the basic problem with a cutlass winch. An anchor winch does two things, free spools and applies globs of torque. It does none of this very precisely, so you push the button and instead of sheeting in a few inches to take advantage of a press in the rig, you suck in 3' of sheet before you could release the button. You could arrange a speed control, so how's your electronics skills?

Thanks Par. I believe that there is a lot of high quality components in the electric motors, R&D too, but can't see the price justification in Australia. We usually pay more out here, except for steak, kangaroos, iron ore etc. For example, the same electric motor in the UK is Pounds Sterling 617, or $US982. In Oz its $US 2903.

I see your comments re the grossness of an anchor winch, and your are right. I expect to hand crank everything once the electric capstan has pulled in most of it. The lines will always be around their winch before going to the capstan.

Hows my electronic? Getting better all the time since I embarked on this exercise, but not red hot yet!

I'm probably going to have to reverse the clockwise spin of the capstan as that makes the best lead for my sheets. I see you can buy reversing switches so it shouldn't be too hard to get it going the other way. I guess I could stick a rheostat in the switch to control the speed, but I suspect its a bit more complex than that.
Appreciate your comments, I'll see how I go.

Hi Bodgy, nice looking south coast. All this talk about winches has reminded me to check the direction of rotation on the anchor winch of WD. when I bought her back the motor was burnt out. Yep that right Par it was a serise 2A landrover starter motor, 1966 model to be presise.
I aquried a 12V motor of a hydraulic power pac which with a bit of machining to the adapter plate I should be able to make it fit. Re direction of rotation of a dc motor, I thought it was how it is wound and if a reversing motor is needed it has 2 winding, But I am as good a auto sparky as a boat builder.
Ian L