Lifting keel with electric drill

[sealegsjim]

The lift keel on my new boat is very light to raise and lower but requires 120 turns of the winch handle. The socket drive is a standard Harken femail like a winch. I was thinking of using an electric drill, possible with a right angle adapter, to raise/lower the keel but where can I get the drive to fit in the drill chuck apart from butchering a winch handle?

 

[Don107]

This would do the job http://thecranker.com/

Regards Don

 

[Plevier]

I made one from a bolt and several square nuts consecutively turned 45 degrees and tightened together and loctited.
The adapter was fine - but the drill started smoking!

 

[30boat]

I made one from a bolt and several square nuts consecutively turned 45 degrees and tightened together and loctited.
The adapter was fine - but the drill started smoking!

The cranker looks good but at that price it cannot be of a good quality.A Makita right angle drill is highly geared down so you get a lot of torque while the motor gets the cooling it needs because it's spinning quite fast.I have a mains one that is very powerful but only draws 300w which makes it suitable for a smallish inverter.
http://www.amazon.com/Makita-XAD02Z...ower-hand-tools&ie=UTF8&qid=1427802679&sr=1-6

 

[Nigel_Ward]

I bought a cheap plastic winch handle with a locking lever. This means the star bit already has a hole bored through the middle.

I cut the star bit out of the plastic and tapped a bolt thread through the middle and finished with a lock nut on the bolt.

 

[ditchcrawler]

I tried the cranker in a good quality drill to hoist my main on a 31 ft boat.As others have said the drill was not up to the job.

I now have a WinchRite and it is brilliant.Very expensive but one of my best boat purchases ever.

 

[30boat]

The op is only trying to lift the keel which is very light.An ordinary drill should be up to it.

 

[Len Ingalls]

The Rolls Royce. http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_o...t+winch.TRS0&_nkw=12+volt+winch&_sacat=169485

 

[sealegsjim]

Thanks everyone for your input. I liked Plevier's innovative idea with the nuts. Might try that or see if I can find a cheepo winch handle to butcher. I am sure the Winchrite would be brilliant but at around £600 somewhat prohibitive for the occasional keel lift

 

[Plevier]

The op is only trying to lift the keel which is very light.An ordinary drill should be up to it.

I don't know what the OP's boat is. When I made an adapter it was for a First 29.
Winding by hand was about 120 turns (like the OP's boat) and it felt very light. However you don't think about how much leverage that winch handle is giving you. When I tried it with a battery drill, admittedly only a 12V one, it soon started smoking.
You can stop - or nearly stop - lots of battery drills by grabbing the chuck. That's a moment arm of maybe 1" compared with a 10" winch handle.
It will need a very good heavy duty battery drill to cope with it.

 

[roblpm]

My mate is trying to persuade me to use my nice new makita on my parker 275s 400kg lift keel. 220 turns! My drill is going to blow up just cos he is too lazy to wind it up!!

 

[Jabs]

How about one of these?

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/...-wrench-kit-12v?da=1&TC=SRC-12v impact driver

Runs off the boats 12v supply.

Tony.

 

[William_H]

As a completely different approach to the problem. It might be possible to change the winching advantage so less turns by handle. A simle way might be to increase the diameter of the cable drum. This might be done by adding 4 or 6 bolts through the drum cheaks so that the wire wraps around the bolts rather than the original drum. This assuming that there is plenty of room on the drum when cable is winched in.
Failing that one of the smaller 12v trailer winches would be your best bet. This could also provide you with the remote control facility. ie a switch in the cockpit.
good luck olewill