Fish Lips
05-07-2010, 09:10 PM
Howdy Fisho's.
Just thought i'd give you the heads up on Micks Anchor Winch.
(I have NO affiliation with Mick's Anchor Winch, i'm just a happy customer)
I bought one about 2 months ago and haven't looked back.
I looked at all the the options when deciding which winch to buy, from the South Pacific types, to the cheap chinese drum winchs on Ebay.
I found Mick's Winch on Ebay as he sells his winches there, as well as privately.
Mick makes his winches here in good old Adelaide.
I contacted him, and as luck would have it, he only lives 5 minutes away from me.
I popped around to his house to check out the quality, (he was happy for me to do so, i even took my boat with me just to make sure it would fit into the anchor well) and within a couple of minutes i had decided to purchase as the quality looked excellent.
He was out of stock so i paid a deposit and the winch was ready in 5 days!!
Mick supplied a heavy duty solenoid, and circuit breaker as well as a toggle switch for anchor operation.
I installed the winch myself following Mick's wiring diagram and it was dead easy.
(Mick can do the install for you, if you need him to)
The winch comes with a 3 year warranty for piece of mind!
Now for the painfull part, the cost.:o
The winch itself with solenoid, switches etc..... was $1,600
I spent probably another $200 on battery cable, lugs, clips mounting hardware etc....
I also bought a roll of nylon anchor rope from Mick $120 for 125 metres (good value), and the bow roller which was about $70.
I also treated the old girl to new anchor chain and a shiny new anchor.
So all up the cost was about $2,000.
Not cheap by any stretch, but quality doesn't come cheap, and it was still way cheaper than some of the other brands available.
At the moment i have probably had the boat in the water at least 6 times since i installed the winch, i am doing an average of 5 to 6 drops in a fishing session and the winch has performed faultlessly.
The only "problem" i have had is, due to the small size of my anchor well the winch had to be offset from centre by about an inch.
That means that the rope doesn't feed quite evenly onto the drum (as seen in my photo's) and what was happening was the chain would jam between the rope and the bracket/boat.
I could have overcome this by mounting the winch on a plate above the anchor well, or by cutting and fibreglassing a recess into the well itself, this would have centred the winch allowing for even spooling.
I didn't think it was neccessary as the simple solution was, trim the anchor rope down from 125 metres to 100 metres and problem solved.
(100 metres of rope is more than enough for gulf fishing here in S.A.).
So not really a "problem" with the winch as such, more of a mounting issue.
Anyway, if your in the market for an anchor winch, it's worth having a look at a Mick's winch.
I sure am happy with mine.
No more pulling/setting the anchor, YEAH BABY!!!!;D
Cheers
Simmo
Just thought i'd give you the heads up on Micks Anchor Winch.
(I have NO affiliation with Mick's Anchor Winch, i'm just a happy customer)
I bought one about 2 months ago and haven't looked back.
I looked at all the the options when deciding which winch to buy, from the South Pacific types, to the cheap chinese drum winchs on Ebay.
I found Mick's Winch on Ebay as he sells his winches there, as well as privately.
Mick makes his winches here in good old Adelaide.
I contacted him, and as luck would have it, he only lives 5 minutes away from me.
I popped around to his house to check out the quality, (he was happy for me to do so, i even took my boat with me just to make sure it would fit into the anchor well) and within a couple of minutes i had decided to purchase as the quality looked excellent.
He was out of stock so i paid a deposit and the winch was ready in 5 days!!
Mick supplied a heavy duty solenoid, and circuit breaker as well as a toggle switch for anchor operation.
I installed the winch myself following Mick's wiring diagram and it was dead easy.
(Mick can do the install for you, if you need him to)
The winch comes with a 3 year warranty for piece of mind!
Now for the painfull part, the cost.:o
The winch itself with solenoid, switches etc..... was $1,600
I spent probably another $200 on battery cable, lugs, clips mounting hardware etc....
I also bought a roll of nylon anchor rope from Mick $120 for 125 metres (good value), and the bow roller which was about $70.
I also treated the old girl to new anchor chain and a shiny new anchor.
So all up the cost was about $2,000.
Not cheap by any stretch, but quality doesn't come cheap, and it was still way cheaper than some of the other brands available.
At the moment i have probably had the boat in the water at least 6 times since i installed the winch, i am doing an average of 5 to 6 drops in a fishing session and the winch has performed faultlessly.
The only "problem" i have had is, due to the small size of my anchor well the winch had to be offset from centre by about an inch.
That means that the rope doesn't feed quite evenly onto the drum (as seen in my photo's) and what was happening was the chain would jam between the rope and the bracket/boat.
I could have overcome this by mounting the winch on a plate above the anchor well, or by cutting and fibreglassing a recess into the well itself, this would have centred the winch allowing for even spooling.
I didn't think it was neccessary as the simple solution was, trim the anchor rope down from 125 metres to 100 metres and problem solved.
(100 metres of rope is more than enough for gulf fishing here in S.A.).
So not really a "problem" with the winch as such, more of a mounting issue.
Anyway, if your in the market for an anchor winch, it's worth having a look at a Mick's winch.
I sure am happy with mine.
No more pulling/setting the anchor, YEAH BABY!!!!;D
Cheers
Simmo