I\\\'d like one. I have chewed up my strap in the winch gears everytime I have retreived every boat I have ever had. I don\\\'t know why it happens, but the strap always goes off centre.I have to buy a new strap every year.

Many thanks Graham for finding these, i have only just spotted your response, will consider now how to install one.

Peter

Guy

The winch on the photo is a design I have not seen before mine is just the open drum type with a simple drive gear on one side of the drum mating with a large drive gear fixed to the winch handle. The main problem with mine I believe is the size of the drum and the amount of strap. A larger winch would ensure that the wall of the drum guided the strap even when fully retracted. So two options for me buy a larger winch or put a guide in front of the drum to ensure it rolls on centrally.

From your picture the winch has a type of cassette around it with a window for the strap to enter, I guess the wood guide now ensures yours aligns straight into the window and then to the drum. Congratulations on sorting your problems out.

I\\\'m also experimenting with an electric winch now, to explain I tend to sail most of the time on reservoirs with the luxury of a pontoon. I also use a trailer with electric submersible drives on the trailer wheels which I can control remotely. I submerge the trailer until the boat floats off and then normally spin the boat around using control lines. The interesting bit comes when I recover her; I submerge the trailer until the V bar at the rear of the trailer is just under the water, that way I can use the rollers to ensure the boat aligns on the trailer correctly. So the process is get the trailer at correct depth, guide the boat to the trailer using mooring lines, get the bow on the V cleat off the stern, quickly get off the pontoon, wade into the water attach winch hook, winch the bow on as far a I can without uncleating stern line, uncleat stern and then run back to the winch and fully recover, I also need to submerge the trailer as I fully recover to stop the trailer front lifting up.

To experiment next season I have purchased from EBay (China) a very expensive remote control adapter for the electric winch. The kit consists of two remotes and a control box to wire into the winch. Brand new including batteries for £1.85 plus postage. And it works a treat. So now I just need to work on attaching the winch hook to the bow cleat without getting wet (looking at extended rubbish pickers) and I can do it all from the pontoon. The coned guide which Graham found should guide my strap/wire correctly to the new winch.

Peter

I use the winch on my BayRaider trailer to winch trailer and boat up our drive which has too much of an incline to use with out mechanical assistance. But I also have the problem that the strap gets caught in the gears and yesterday I just about finished off the strap which will need replacing.  Why don\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t people swap the strap for a steel wire? Surely this would go onto the reel much more reliably??

Colin

One concern with wire rope for winches is that if they do break, and they can, it happens without warning and if the wire is under high load the consequences can be awful. Steel cable with a frayed end lashing around anyone within reach. A webbing strap fails gardually and the worst you can get is a slap with a cloth. Dyneema is used for hauling up gliders and should be excellent, but it is hellish expensive. You could replace your webbing starp many times for the cost of a dyneema cable.