Heavy duty tinned cable is not all that expensive. I bought sixty feet (30'
out, 30' back) of 1/0 tinned cable from Cobra for about $2 a foot. I did not
have to buy another battery to install in the bow and add even more weight
up forward along with the windlass, anchor and 150' of chain. The cables
distribute their weight along the length of their run to an already installed
battery. A 100 amp breaker within a foot of the battery ensures we don't have
live cables running all over the boat. And it is the battery, not the
alternator, that drives the windlass. As it happens, we have a high output
charging system but that only means you put the juice back in the battery
faster, not raise the anchor faster. As others have mentioned, use the engine
to pull the boat over the anchor and break it out, not the windlass to lift
the sea floor.

Don't know about others but ours is a Lewmar Concept 1 gypsy and captstan with
dual station/dual direction switches. The switch wiring is abominable. It is
very small guage and not tinned and handles very low current to a solenoid
that does the heavy-duty switching. The low-current wiring rapidly turns to
red dust and the switches regularly fail. Put in decent wiring, you say. The
existing wiring is integral into the switch. All I can do is keep peeling back
to bright copper and splice yet again. But I am running out of space. I'll
think of something.

The motor on this unit also failed. I had it rebuilt at a local automotive
elctrical shop. Lewmar has been less than helpful.