You raise me up!
If you’re leafing pensively through the pages of a winch manufacturer’s catalogue, you’re likely to fall into one of two camps. Either you are looking to switch from manual to electric, for the sake of convenience, comfort and safety. Or your old winch is beginning to perform erratically, making it time for a change.
In either case, the simplest and cheapest solution is to replace like with like. By sticking to the same winch size and brand, the deck footprint remains the same and, unless your existing unit is very elderly, the all-important fixings are identical. Just be aware that some prices have increased by 20 per cent year-on-year.
On smaller cruising boats where you want to stick with a manual winch, you can often find a good deal by turning to the second-hand market. People sell their perfectly functional manual winches when they upgrade to electric. Ebay, Gumtree and online forums for your brand of boat are the best hunting grounds. Boat jumbles and specialist ‘breakers’ like boatjunkyard.co.uk are also worth exploring.
Going electric
First of all, check whether your existing winch model has a corresponding conversion kit available from the manufacturer. This can slash the
