Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | I learned a bit about boat winches when mine failed. I started out being unhappy that I'd bought a winch (1400 pound Fulton) and wanted a replacement or some compensation yada-yada-yada.
When I spoke with a technician at Fulton he told me a few rules of thumb ... 1. take the total weight of your boat and motor and divide by 1.5 to determine the capacity you will need and 2. for heavy boats have 3 bolt base ... 2 side by side in the front and 1 in back. if you take your winch off and set it on a table, it should sit flat and if it doesn't then you're under powered and torqued it.
After learning this and then physically looking at mine I became convinced that I was under powered.
He said some manufacturers are notorious for under-sizing winches and if you generally power load to the full extent you never exert your winch and if or when you do you will find it to be under powered ... if you feel like the handle-lever is carrying all the load and your strap is twisting ... you might have a problem.
I'm going to a larger size, going to the silver unit that has a driver on both sides of the drum and going to be over powered from this point forward.
Sometimes it's best to realize you made a mistake, learned why and fixed it vs. yelling and screaming at a company ... I'm glad the customer service guy sent me to talk to the technical guy. Now I'm going to share what I learned with the parts guy at my dealer and hopefully keep someone else from having the same problem I did. it was a little nerve-wrecking pulling the boat out of the water not believing in my winch and whether there was enough seating to hold it while i pulled it out.
Edited by jonnysled 5/19/2015 9:29 AM
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