Trojan Boat Forum

I have a capstan type rope only,Im a fairly young guy and never go to the trouble to use it.I have never tried it in the three seasons i have had the boat.Are these worth using John

I am a old guy and the anwser is yes . never had one when I was young.

I'm an old guy too and I have never used the windlass. I did take it apart when I bought the boat to clean & lubricate it, and bought new anchor rode trying to get it to grip the rope, but it has not pulled an anchor for me yet. I get the wife to ease the boat up to the anchor while I take up the slack and then its no problem to pull it up the rest of the way. If its stuck in the mud take up all the slack you can and then wrap the rode around a cleat and the windage / tide on the boat will pull it out. A bow pulpit with a roller is a must for pulling an anchor this big by hand.

Danny, the proper use of a winlass, is that you really only use it to take up the slack, and raise and lower the anchor rode. It is supposed to do the job you are doing by hand. Instead of standing on the bow to take up the slack, you motor forward to take up the slack then use the engines to release the bite of the anchor in the bottom, and once broken free, winch the anchor rode and anchor up. This makes a two-person operation, a single-handed operation.

If you use the winlass to pull the anchor out of the bottom you can burn the motor out, or certainly shorten significantly its lifespan.


Thanks for letting me spew.

I like to keep things simple on the boat. One less piece of machinery is one less thing to fix or replace. I never anchor out without my wife onboard and my method lets her handle the boat some which makes her happy. To each his own. John asked for our opinions.

I don't know where Tri-guy boats but up here in the Great Lakes we anchor out every trip... the windlass allows me to do that single handed or not. It is used every trip and the 20+ yr old windlass continues to work flawlessly.
My wife refuses to crew on a boat without one....

I love my capstan windlass, and my 25lb CQR doesn't budge, even in howling wind and 4 footers.