Don Mahony wrote:
The batteries are on the port side down in the engine compartment. To
come from there to where the breaker and control relay is located is
15 feet. From the breaker I have to go back down to the bottom of the
boat and gradually up to the bow where the windlass is located. :-(

Have you thought about running just a relay control cable between the
control panel and the windlass power cable near the battery? So you'd
have the controls up and the actual relay would be down there in the
path of the windlass power cable. The relay control cables would carry a
current of under one amp, so they can be something like 18 AWG. But in
this case you should have a circuit breaker "down there" for the
windlass as it bypasses the circuit breaker you mentioned. Maybe this
arrangement is not worth the trouble.

Btw, there's a nice voltage drop calculator for figuring out what cable
size to use at http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm , below the
cable size table.

Tapio