I'm building a home made kayak hoist to lift my boat to the ceiling in the
garage. The one part I can't seem to find is a hand crank for the ropes
with a safety ratchet so the hoist can't accidentally fall to the floor. I
got a small hand winch for that but it's a poor compromise because with the
gearing down it will take a huge number of cranks to pull the hoist to the
roof. I don't really need the mechanical advantage of the winch since the
kayak and hoist frame are not that much weight. Even a hand crank will
have some mechanical advantage since the crank radius will be bigger
than the spool radius. I think that would be enough for this hoist.

If anyone has a tip on somewhere to buy a rope crank like this I'd like to
hear it.
thanks,
Mark