Winch Bit and Milwaukee 28V drill for power winching.

My doctor told me my back was not good and that I should look for ways to reduce the stress I put on it. Yanking on a halyard while bent over under the dodger came to mind. Also the pull I give to jib sheets right after tacking and before I put in the winch handle.

So I looked into converting my winches to power. It wasn't long before I realized that I could afford it if I put off retirement. Power winches are very expensive. So I looked into using a 28V rechargeable Milwaukee angle drill and a bit made for the winches.   I used a square bit with a round shank in a old angle drill plugged into the inverter for a while to see if it would work. It is very useful for cranking someone up a mast, but when you reverse the drill, the chuck comes unscrewed. I haven't reversed the chuck on the Milwaukee yet, but I have read the the same thing will happen.  One solution is to take the chuck off and put it on with some Locktite. Do not put the locktite on the retaining screw which can break, but the chuck itself. I read about this on the web and have not done it yet.

I won't have to do this as my winches work fine in the lower speed clockwise direction, but today I tried to use it on some old Lewmar mast mounted winches and found that they were geared in the opposite direction. The motor bogged down quickly as it tried to hoist me up the mast in the higher gear.

On my Catalina 42, the lower gear on the primary winches works fine with the angle drill which we have nick named "Arnold" due to its strength.  It does a great job of hoisting the main and tightening the luff.  It also works well on my 140% jib.  I can say that the drill can start to run out of power when it gets to the very last bit of the genoa on a windy day, or when it starts to really stretch the luff of the main. It is up to the task though.

Recharging has been accomplished with the onboard inverter which takes very little time. I understand that this is a new generation of battery on the angle drill and that it should perform better than the older battery model. I am amazed at how quickly it recharges. There are indicator lights on the battery and on the charger which tell you how well charged it is and when it is done. I haven't run the battery all the way down yet as I hoist the main and trim the head sail a few times before it wears out. Going up the mast does use up about half of the power according to the LED lights on the battery when it is put in the charger.

When we start the motor during our approach to an anchorage or a mooring field I plug it in.  After the anchor is down, I usually find it fully charged with a green light. I recommend this tool with the http://www.winchbit.com and the cover for the drill from http://www.thecranker.com/. The ultimate cranker seems to prevent the bit from screwing off when switched in reverse, but you loose the flexibility of the 3 jaw chuck for other jobs.