Graham’s Tests

The reasons are about space, simplicity (including having enough electricity to run them) and budget. On my boat for instance, there are half a dozen winches ranging in size up to a pair of 48s for the primaries. Apart from the fact that there simply isn’t room beneath the deck for electric winch motors, they’re in the order of four or five thousand euros each… putting them completely out of the question.

But it’s not just about the convenience. As we get older, we’ve got to accept certain realities. Last year, my wife had surgery on her spine: a disk removed from her neck and the two vertebrae either side fused together. Winching wasn’t something on the surgeon’s list of recommended post-operative activities. As we sail mostly just the two of us, the boat has to be set up as if single-handing – especially for longer passages.

And while I’d certainly heard of ewincher (it’s been around for a few years now), it wasn’t until meeting its creator Bruno Rabu at last year’s La Rochelle boat show that we’d really had a look at one.

Rather than an electric winch, the ewincher is quite simply an electric winch handle. The same length as a traditional handle, it contains a battery and a brushless motor. The motor, with torque of 90 Nm and a speed of 110 rpm (for the ewincher 2 model), can be reversed with a button on the handle, meaning you can instantly switch speeds on a two-speed winch. The speed of the SE model is 83 rpm. Both models weigh 2.2 kg (less than 5 lbs) and are waterproof to IPX6. Powered by a 28V lithium-ion battery, they will last all day with intensive use before recharging: tested on a 40-footer, one charge allowed for hoisting the mainsail three times and then sheeting the genoa after tacking 40 times. Another obvious benefit is that it can be used on all the boat’s winches.

Prices:
Ewincher SE: € 1,899
Ewincher 2: € 2,399

www.ewincher.com