Anyone with experience please advise.

The trailer came with a  10:1 manual winch that I couldn't easily turn by  the winch handle so replaced that with  a different manual winch with a low gear of 15:1.  I use  1: 1 to manually start and get the bow a metre or so up the trailer and then use the battery drill.

Definitely needs the long clamp on handle that clamps around the housing to counteract  the torque.....pushing down on that handle quite hard but the boat comes up fast......maybe 45 sec or so.

I like the simplicity and the fact that if anything goes wrong , I still have the manual winch   which I know works fine but just hard work.

I have no faith in a $200 winch.  A priced a Superwinch back at the time I decided to go with the battery drill and it was more like $1600 or $1700 and on top of that was heavy duty wiring back to the vehicle battery or the cost of a second battery mounted on the trailer , so not exactly cheap.

Highly recommend if you use the right drill.

5.3m tinnie. One gets hauled off the beach on to the trailer - so has to lift up and on to the trailer. The other, depending on the tide has to haul my boat up a steep slope on to the trailer - steeper than any boat ramp I have seen. The first one, I have had for about 6 yrs now. No issues. The 2nd one I just fitted this yr. It did fail - turns out one end of the drive bit turns in a bush and the high load chewed the bush out. I fitted a couple of cheap bearings in place of the bush. Working fine.

I am surprised the drills are strong enough - but given the right gearing and grunty drill, it is obviously do-able.  There is an advantage , as stated - with the drill in that if it fails you still have the manual winch. However the 2nd boat which I haul up a steep slope was an absolute pig at times - I couldn't do it in a single go. Too steep, too old.  This $200 winch does it. And the remote function on both winches is worth its weight in gold. I have wired them to the vehicle battery - simple plug in job when the trailer couples. For $200, I would not be without them.

I pulled the 2nd one apart when it failed, looking for the cause. It is strongly constructed. The gears are taking a big load and no issue. Just a bush chewed out. The gear end has a solid bearing. The small bearings I used to replace the bush seem to be working fine.

Alan 

Yes he did. I would go with the current advice.

Oh and be prepared for general admiration, most times you load the boat as the people next to you watch in awe at how easy loading you boat is.

And whatever happened to Steps?

Steps posted lots of very bad advice. He did have some good points. I know Steps personally. He is an over bearing know it all. I tried for far too long to be patient with him & took quite a bit of flack from others for doing so. Quite rightly too. I couldn't get him to stop posting nonsense or being abusive so I told him a few home truths & eventually he stopped and still has an active membership here and I suspect he still visits here from time to time.

His boat has been parked up for well over a year but his son has a nice flash Profile so maybe he fishes with him these days.

For those who are in the Steps camp, that's fine. I'm guessing you've never fished with him or seen some of his handiwork. He did give a mate some smoked fish a few months back and I have to say he did a great job of it. Some of his previous efforts were pretty rough though.

But anyway, I shouldn't turn this into a Steps bash but hey you did ask 

Glad he's still alive and kicking though!

It pulled up a 7.2m fibreglass boat easily. So the 805 should make light work for your boat. Use the lowest speed, so you don't load the motor and battery up. Always use a full battery.

There would be a few variables I suspect.

Alan

Mine pulls the boat up on the 5:1 one side, with a boat weighing over 2000kg. The 15:1 side makes very easy work of it.

What ratio are you using.

The other thing to do (if you don't already) is spray silicon on all the bushes of the winch. You will find that helps heaps. Particularly when you pull the rope out.

Oh and spray your trailer rollers with silicon too. Just be careful launching, because the boat will come off very fast.

I spray the rollers and winch bushes with silicon every 3 to 4 months. It helps a lot

The boat rolls off quickly so I assume the rollers are running freely. I will give them a spray.

I wonder about the ramp angle, the steeper it is would make it harder. But its a council ramp, deosnt seem very steep. 

THere must be some reason, but Im stumped. It does get almost all the way up, so its still worth while.

Last time, I lubricated the winch, and it came all the way. Great. 

Mossy I don't like bagging people and I know Steps had his fans here. I know Keith personally and because of that I did my best to look after him.  He genuinely believes what he posted & he is still around and ok. Unfortunately he could get carried away in the moment and would often post up stuff that he thought was 100% on the money but unfortunately didn't quite match the reality. I can privately give some details if you want them but I'm not going to do so here. 

For a few years I took a lot of flack from others who knew his 'facts' weren't quite right and I tried so many times to help him but I got nowhere. In the end I decided I had to be cruel to be kind and gave him both barrels in person (and on here). I haven't seen him since but I know others who are still in touch with him.

Some of his advice was so bizarre  and unfortunately people new to the game would believe his every word. 

He wasn't a complete bunny but he didn't have anywhere near the expertise he thought he had.

Bottom line I guess is we all only know what we know, and it is important to remember that.