Marine Winches

Marine winches are what keep a floating dock secured to the shoreline. Attached to the dock frame and run to a piling, anchor, or shoreline tie-off, a hand winch lets you take up slack or let out line as conditions change. Unlike a fixed cable or chain, a winch can be released and re-tensioned in minutes without cutting anything loose.

We stock galvanized steel dock winches in four sizes. The #8 marine winch is the light-duty option, rated at 1,500 lb lifting and 3,000 lb holding with 3:1 and 8:1 gear ratios and a 5" drum. It handles smaller residential floating docks and straightforward tie-offs where cable runs are short.

The #10, #11, and #23 marine winches share the same rating - 3,000 lb lifting, 10,000 lb holding, with 4:1 and 11:1 gear ratios - so what separates them is drum width and the cable each one holds. The #10 has a 5" drum, the #11 an 8¾" drum, and the #23 a full 21" drum. Choose by how much cable you need to spool: short anchor lines on a residential dock call for the #10, longer runs to an offshore anchor or a deep-water piling call for the #11, and the #23 handles the long cable runs found on commercial docks, wide channel crossings, and sites with extreme water level swings.

All four are galvanized steel for saltwater and freshwater service, with a ratcheting drum that holds tension under load and releases in a controlled way rather than letting the line run free. The two-speed gearing lets you crank fast on the large gear to take up slack, then switch to the small gear for the final tensioning where you need the mechanical advantage. Most dock builders mount a winch at each corner of a floating section so each corner can be adjusted independently when a dock settles unevenly or one side takes more current than the other.

Worth keeping in mind that holding capacity, not lifting capacity, is the number that matters for anchoring a dock: the winch spends nearly all its life holding tension rather than pulling load. That's why the #10, #11, and #23 all suit the same class of dock despite their different sizes - the decision is about cable length, not dock weight. If you're not sure which winch fits your setup, give us a call. We've been supplying dock builders and waterfront property owners for over 25 years.