Ball hitch mounted electric winch for boat retrieval!

I am a avid reader but seldom poster on the site, but I am gonna chance my arm for some opinions/advice on this subject.

Shall we say I am brand new to the boat game and know very little. Learned quite alot of reading posts on here when setting up the boat, from a bare hull very useful.

The car (1.6L) we use to launch our boat doesn't really like pulling it back up the slip (smell of burning clutch still in the car), even while using a rope and staying on the dry ground. It is a steep enough slip and there is only a road width of flat ground at the top. Rather than forkin out for a better tow vehicle or new clutches I was toying with the idea of a ball hitch mounted electric winch! I have searched winch related topics on the site and read all related posts and have done my web based research on this topic.

Kinda hoping a bit of knowledge or wisdom may be passed down to a younger less experienced fellow like myself. Your tips, comments, advice, warnings, etc. would all be very welcome.

Hooker.

hi hooker you could use a good decent rope un hitch the trailer chock the wheels first slip the rope tru the trailer with a slip knot and around the tow bar and let it down easy make sure you have a decent jockey wheel you can pull the empty trailer back up out of the way not the quickest way but it is safe in case your worried about it tipping up have the second person stand on the front of the trailer let it down slow i have seen it work were lads are using cars on steep slips

Hi steyrnan, thanks for the reply. That's exactly what we've been doing, using the rope and chocking method as we don't really want to see the car floating off into the harbour! Have even seen a range rover swimming off the slip!

It works fine launching the boat but the car seems to just lack the grunt to pull the boat and trailer up the slip. My dad and brother reckon some system is kicking in in the car if the wheels hint at spinning killing the revs and stalling the car on the slip I don't drive just yet so thats the best I can explain. A sound bloke gave us a pull up the slip with his van the last day and we helped him recover his boat as he was alone.

Was just toying with the idea of using the car as an anchor and getting a winch that could pull the whole shebang up to a managable spot at the top of the slip! Have you ever seen this or something similar done?

Nice fish in the wexford area report by the way recognised your user name. Fun on the light gear I bet.

Have you checked the amount of weight bearing down on the nose of the trailer? If the boat is not in the correct position, there might be too much weight transferring to the car ball hitch which will in turn lift the front of the car enough to reduce traction. Your trailer handbook should give you the figures.

What size of boat is it, and what kind of car? I have a 16.5 ft Warrior copy with a 50hp outboard and used to pull it up a steep slip with a 1.6 Astra GT - but only just. Any bigger boat would have been a no-no with that size car and power.

On the electric winch idea, you'd need a fairly hefty item to haul a boat and trailer up a steep slip.

Hi hooker sounds a lot like courtown slip your talking about i have also seen a car floating in the harbour after a launch here, have it on video .
if so you could try cahore slip instead as it would not be as steap, so it would be a little easier on the clutch .

like hugo said what boat engine trailer i have a buddy that tows his warrior 175 with is car and launchs it and retrives it with no great problems a lot depends on the slip and how steep it is i have used a lot of winchs on landrovers yes it can be done it would mean new battery heavey duty wiring and a plate bolted over the hitch warn do a demountable winch that fits over the plate with 4 pins fitted i have fitted rear mounted winches on landrovers easy to do a good bit of work but if it saves you hardship its worth a try

The boat is a wilson flyer 17.5 with twin 25hp on a snipe trailer. Second hand so no documents. The car is a suziki baleno. Before I get slagged on going for twins i understood the downsides, but they were mint never seen salt and resonably priced and of course I think they look cool.

Bang on there John1 Doin a bit on the trailer today before tryin cahore.

Hugo, there doesn't seem to be too much as it is easily unhitched on the slip. there is anchor points on the slip if the car is not heavy enough.

Steyrman, thats exactly the kinda mount i was lookin at. My best mate is a mechanic and a offroading0landy nut so he's helpin me out too.

Just thinkin a little outside the box and testin the waters with experienced guys on here. Just tryin to make life easier on us and the car

If you do go the winch route, keep us posted will you? I've been wondering about fitting an electric winch to the back of the jeep just to get the boat onto the trailer - shoulders and back showing painful signs of age and abuse on the manual winch.

Will do. Would take a smaller winch for that though I reckon.

If you do go the winch route, keep us posted will you? I've been wondering about fitting an electric winch to the back of the jeep just to get the boat onto the trailer - shoulders and back showing painful signs of age and abuse on the manual winch.

hi hugo you can get a warn winch and fit it to the trailer run welding cable back from main battery fit a anderson jack plug leave the engine running you will have know problems i use to run 2 winches on my defender 90 front and rear with no problems for the amout of time it would be used a 3000 lb winch would do one for a quad bike is perfect for the job

The boat is a wilson flyer 17.5 with twin 25hp on a snipe trailer. Second hand so no documents. The car is a suziki baleno. Before I get slagged on going for twins i understood the downsides, but they were mint never seen salt and resonably priced and of course I think they look cool.

Bang on there John1 Doin a bit on the trailer today before tryin cahore.

Hugo, there doesn't seem to be too much as it is easily unhitched on the slip. there is anchor points on the slip if the car is not heavy enough.

Steyrman, thats exactly the kinda mount i was lookin at. My best mate is a mechanic and a offroading0landy nut so he's helpin me out too.

Just thinkin a little outside the box and testin the waters with experienced guys on here. Just tryin to make life easier on us and the car

nothing wrong with twin engine setup save and sound on courtown slip if you have a work with joe in courtown angling centre he could sort out the use of thr rnli winch straight across from slip a handy thing for launch and retrive of your boat worth a phone call

I was talking about this with AdamS of this site some time ago. His solution (seems Excellent) is to mount a second winch on the trailer itself. Then you wind the boat upto the car. There is a bit more elbow grease involved, but it works very well for him.

Kev

I'm from down there and when i'm not in work up here in dublin spend alot of time down fishing around courtown. I'll possibly be in the shop tonight contemplating wetting a line when i get down this evening. Had considered that option but i have one eye on being independant and capable of launching at any slip when I build up some experience, next season maybe Kilmore. Full liscence and purchase of a 4x4 permitting

I was talking about this with AdamS of this site some time ago. His solution (seems Excellent) is to mount a second winch on the trailer itself. Then you wind the boat upto the car. There is a bit more elbow grease involved, but it works very well for him.

Kev

What kind of winch was it he installed, looked at a 2tonne hand winch aswell.

I think he installed a hand winch on the Trailer bar, just back from the tow hitch using U Bolts. You simply run the heavy duty strap around the tow bar and wind up to the car. Chock the wheels and reverse a couple of feet, hitch up and drive away. I know Adam is busy with work these days, but I will give him a bell and see if he has time to upload some pics.

Kev

If you do go the winch route, keep us posted will you? I've been wondering about fitting an electric winch to the back of the jeep just to get the boat onto the trailer - shoulders and back showing painful signs of age and abuse on the manual winch.

hi hugo you can get a warn winch and fit it to the trailer run welding cable back from main battery fit a anderson jack plug leave the engine running you will have know problems i use to run 2 winches on my defender 90 front and rear with no problems for the amout of time it would be used a 3000 lb winch would do one for a quad bike is perfect for the job

Thanks for that Willie, I'll look into that and PM you if and when I go ahead. No doubt I'll be needing more advice

Thanks Mac. Would be a simplier option alright.

Hi All

Just dropped in on this by chance. Yeah thats pretty much it Kev. We have two winches on the trailer. but you could even do it with one if you have a good heavy two way winch.

What we do, though we havent needed to since we got the trooper is to have the normal winch for pulling the boat on the trailer and then a second winch just up at the tow hitch. We pull the boat up onto the trailer and and chock the wheels.

Disconnect the hitch and drive up to the top of the slip. now connect the strap to your tow ball and winch while you walk up with the boat. Once up chock again and reconnect.

It does work but its not something I would want to do every week.

Alternatively with just one good two way winch you can winch the boat up and use a ratchet strap to hold the boat onto the trailer. Then disconnect the winch and use it as above. Not sure I would want to just have the one winch on as big a boat as the flyer. The advantage of having the winch on the trailer rather than the car is that you can walk along with it in case you want to make adjustments as you go.

Thanks adamS. Was looking at the option of adding a big, possibly geared winch to the trailer. What size and kind of winch did you go with?

Yeah its a big geared one we got, not sure of the size but I will check it out later and let you know.