When we first started cruising we were urged by those in the know to get a powered windlass. We resisted for a short period, but quickly became believers in electric as opposed to hand power.
There are multiple reasons for this:
- You can carry big anchors and use chain without worrying about the effort required to pull this gear.
- If the anchor set is not satisfactory there is no hesitation to reanchor.
- The windlass can be used for going aloft.
- You can carry bigger anchors (intentional repeat).
Needless to say, for serious cruising a powered windlass is essential.
Posted by Steve Dashew (June 11, 2010)
June 13th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
“for serious cruising a powered windlass is essential”. Well I have to disagree. My wife and I cruised for 7 years with a manual windlass on our 43 ft sailboat. We visited plenty of deep anchorages in the Pacific and our working anchor was a 65lb CQR on 300ft chain. I considered it part of my daily exercise! Yes re-anchoring is a drag (no pun intended) but it was just an extra work out and made a cold beer taste especially good. Now let’s talk about “for serious cruising a refrigerator for cold beer is essential”
June 27th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
handraulics suck!
I’m with you Steve,Hydraulic or electric, I’ve had both, and prefer either.
If you have 10 healthy fit young divers onboard, by all means feel free to employ them for anchor recovery.