Nilsson Winches are made by James Nilsson Ltd who has had zero connection to Maxwell for many many years. The company is now run by James son Grant. Until recently Grant was in
partnership with a bloke called Jerry. Jerry is one of those mad scientist type
engineer bloke who knows just about all there is to know about winches like these. He has also designed a huge pile of the winches in use today under many brand names.
Jerry has now retired even though they have yet to get him to leave
He keeps turning up to
work, I think because Shelia (his wife) has a nasty list of thing to do at home. Shelia and Debbie (the wives) do the 'hard stuff' like paperwork while the boys play with their toys. In this case the toys are some very sexy CNC machines and the like. Or at least that's what the girls tell me often
They are a class manufacturer and operator. So much so they actually make many big winches that are branded
Lewmar. Until recently many
Simpson Lawrence as well but that brand has been killed off.
They also make many of the superboat winches that are branded
Harken.
They have always had their own range which was a continuation after they stopped making the Nilsson Maxwell branded ones. Also they weren't that keen on being seen pushing their own brand while making many for the rest of them.
They don't do the smaller ones as they reckon most are built to a
price and they only build for performance so wouldn't be in the
price range the tinnies are looking for.
As you can tell they deal with people who take their name seriously so don't deal with bunnies. Nilssons are not bunnies and I'd use one of their winches long before a few of the bigger more well known brand names.
We deal with all the
winch people here but when we get a real tricky one Nilssons are our 'go to
winch people'. The knowledge in that building is immense. They also can make lots of bits for older winches (just about any brand) when the manufacturer has stopped doing so.
They get sent for winches from all over the world for
repair, servicing and so on.
And as noted with our dollar sinking faster than a lead balloon they probably are now bloody
cheap.
If you have any questions just ask. I
work is only 100mts (err.. 300ft odd) from Nilssons and know both them and their products pretty well.