I have been searching for a replacement windlass all winter and found that at least in the horizontal variety suitable for our boat, very few deal with line very well.
Allot of them have a capstan for the line part of the rode, but I have found through personal experience that hauling long lengths of line, with the weight of a large anchor and a hundred feet of chain totaling about 225 lbs is just no fun at all using a capstan if you do it very often, and I do it several times a day when fishing.
The only horizontal windlass in this size range that I've found that even advertises a gypsy that will effectivly handle line and chain both is the Maxwell HRC series.
Thats a big reason we decided to go with an all chain rode. For us going with an all chain rode with our lifting requirements of 300' of chain plus a hundred pound anchor forced us to replace our Muir Cougar windlass with the higher capacity Lofrans Tigrress windlass.
The point is that if you are considering a line/chain combination rode make sure that both you and your windlass are capable of that work in the actual depths you anchor in. I know our requirement to anchor in 300' of water is unusual, but your anchoring conditions need to dictate the gear you choose.
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