Electric Furling for Headsail

[drewke07]

On our Aikane56 We lead the furling line form our ProFurl to one of the electric primary winches at the helm. Just be sure that you leave enough furler line so that you can lead it to whichever primary winch you are not using to control the headsail. We use a snatch block to help with the lead. flawless......

[Sandero]

I can't see the advantage over the risk for power assisted headsail furling. The profurl we use can be eaily hand furled or with a winch. We use a secondary when we want a tight wrap. Regardless furling with the winch is way "easier" than trimming the sail with the primary in all but the lightest air.

KISS

[svHyLyte]

After suffering an injury that allows me only partial use of my left arm, I investigated replacing the winches on our boat with electrics. Before doing so, however, we attended a boat show where a device consisting of a cordless Milwaukee Right Angle drill fitted with a "winch bitt" and a very nicely made cover was offered. It turns out that on the internet the drill was all of $350 while the winch bitt was $19--all up about 1/3rd of the boat show offering (but we didn't get a nice cover--we made one). With this device even my 105# wife easily hoists the main and trims and furls a 135 headsail on our First 42. As SeaKing noted, the batteries charge quickly, even with a 12 volt charger. (The batteries seem to last best if stored in the fridge fully charged in a zip-lock bag.) Lastly of course is the fact that the drill has other uses when simply used as a drill.

FWIW...

s/v HyLyte

[Lucky]

Lots of good information in this tread! I want to add some sort of electric assistance to furl the headsail and to me it looks like svHyLyte has found a good solution.
This is written 4 years since that last post but I give it a try and ask for help on where to get one of this cordless right angle drills including the bit. I'll also need a 12V charger if that's possible without adding a transformer as svHuLyte mentioned that the battery is 35V.
If someone out there can point me in the direction of where I can get one of these I'll be a happy chap.

Happy lead free sailin from Lucky