Glenn Ashmore wrote:

I can't say this is a truly authoritative comparison but speaking to
several designers and production builders I have narrowed it down
some.

Lewmar has a better worldwide support network and offers deeper
discounts to production builders which makes them much more
attractive to the mass market. (If anything about sailing can be
called "mass market".)

Harken winches are slightly more efficient at the price of slightly
more complexity. Harkens also have a small weight advantage.

There's also Anderson (expensive) and Arco. We ended up with Harken. I
picked up three new self-tailers off E-bay and saved enough to buy the
fourth one new. I broke one of the top pieces ( dropped it during the
install) called the West Coast Distributor and had a new one in about
four days. I think the cost was about $15. Jim




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