* Gogarty wrote, On 4/25/2007 7:29 AM:
In article ,
The advantages to a manual windlass are -- you don't have to have a
battery set up to run it with either long cables to the engine and
main battery setup, or long cables from the main battery bank to the
bow.
Well yes, an electric windlass means electricity. I always thought
the extra battery was a bit silly, but running the wire is no big deal.
You don't need an extra battery and you certainly don't need to put one way
up in the bow. Batteries wear out. Just run the cable to where the
batteries are and install a good 100 amp (or greater) circuit breaker next
to the batteries. The cable will never go bad. The batteries will in due
course.
The breaker should be easily accessible, since you want to keep the
windlass off most of the time for safety.
On another point, not all electric windlasses have manual override. On our
Lewmar, you can launch the anchor if the battery is dead or the motor
burned out but you can't get it back except by man-handling it. Our motor
did die after five years. Local automotive elctrical shop rebuilt it.
Which Lewmar? Our Sprint 1000 (older S/L now replaced by newer Lewmar
models) has a little gadget that allows a winch handle to be used as a
manual over-ride. I thought that every windlass had something like
this as an option.