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How to Select an Anchor Windlass for your Boat

The Right Anchor Windlass Depends on:

A few factors. However, having the correct anchor windlass will make even the most difficult anchoring situations much easier and safer. A few factors you'll need to know before purchasing a windlass are: boat size and type, displacement, anchor weight, anchor rode and hardware weight, and chain size. What about anchoring environment? The anchor windlass is responsible for pulling the weight of the ground tackle, to offset the effects of bad weather, the boats main engines do all the heavy lifting.

Lofrans offers a Windlass Selection Guide Here

Choosing Between Manufacture Brands:

Both Lofrans and Muir make the best marine windlasses you can choose from. At Seatech Marine, we only offer windlasses that we can fully support and know full well the customer will be satisfied. We have serviced and installed every brand of windlass here in the boating community of San Diego, CA for more than a decade and Lofrans and Muir windlass are the only ones we will offer. The difference comes down to preference but there is a wide selection for every boat type. We also offer the E-Z Anchor Puller.

How Will the Windlass Be Powered?

You can purchase a manual, DC or AC powered windlass, or a Hydraulic powered windlass. Our most commonly sold boat windlasses are the DC Powered units.

You can choose a manual windlass, where you provide the energy; they are less expensive, easier to install, and require neither the wiring nor the plumbing of electric and hydraulic windlasses.

Electric windlasses are the most power anchor windlasses for sailboats and powerboats. They supply generous lifting power to make anchoring a simple task of pressing a foot switch or pushing a button. The electric windlasses are fairly compact and can typically be powered using the boat's existing electrical system.

Hydraulic windlasses supply the most power and are extremely efficient. They require a central hydraulic system within the yacht to power them. Because of this reason, they are typically installed on large yachts.

Rope/Chain Combination or All Chain?

Most people will fit rope/chain combination anchor rode. The anchor rode usually combines a mid-length piece of chain (10-50') spliced to a high quality 3 strand anchor line. Most of Lofrans vertical windlasses can now use combination rode on a single gypsy or chainwheel. Most of the horizontal windlasses can retrieve both chain and rope. A primary advantage to having rope/chain is having less weight in the bow of the boat.

All chain rode is much easier to retrieve for all windlasses. Chain will not not kink like rope, making the retrieval a faster process. The chain sits in the pocket of the gypsy much easier and because of the weight it will fall into place in the chain locker. Chain is much stronger making it highly abrasion resistant, but is more expensive, heavier, and can collect mud.

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Vertical or Horizontal Windlass:

Vertical windlasses are the most popular choice because there is less of an obtrusive presence on your fore deck. The motor and gearbox are both mounted below deck while the chain wheel is placed on a vertical driveshaft above deck. Vertical windlasses typically retrieve combination rode with a single gypsy. The rode makes a full 180° wrap around the chain wheel and feeds through a deck pipe into the anchor locker at a 90° turn. Vertical windlasses should be used when there is enough room above the available rod fall and the windlass motor. The vertical windlasses usually require a fairly large hole to be cut in the deck for the gearbox. One of our most popular vertical windlasses is the Lofrans Project 1000 for instance.

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Horizontal windlasses mount the chain gypsy and capstan on either side of the on deck windlass. The gear box and motor are typically installed inside the winch housing above deck. Which means only you only need to cut a whole for the chain pipe, wire and thru-bolts. This leaves plenty of room for the anchor fall in small or unusually shaped anchor lockers. The horizontal windlass usually retrieves rope and chain separately which means most horizontal windlass owners use chain only.

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Sizing Considerations:

The anchor windlass is intended to retrieve the anchor and ground tackle, not to pull or drag the boat. A typical rule of thumb is to take the total weight of the anchor and ground tackle and multiply by a factor of three. (for example a boat with a 22lb anchor and 40lbs of anchor rode and hardware would select a windlass with a power rating of more than 62*3= 186lbs). Each windlass that we offer will have the power rating listed in the specifications.

We also offer a sizing chart to help you get started on selecting a windlass based on your boat length. It is merely only meant to be a tool, you should first contact our anchor windlasses experts on our contact page.

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