Marine Anchor Windlass

A marine anchor windlass is a mechanical device on the deck of a ship designed to assist in the raising and lowering of anchors. Marine anchor windlass typically consists of a power device(electric motor/hydraulic motor/diesel engine), gearbox or reduction mechanism, gypsy wheel (chain wheel/ sprocket) for winding the anchor chain, brake device, clutch device, control systems etc. According to the power source type, it can be divided into electric anchor windlass, hydraulic anchor windlass and diesel engine anchor windlass.

1. Marine Electric Anchor Windlass: The power source of the marine electric anchor windlass is the electric motor. Through the variable speed pinion(small gear) transmission of the gearbox, the pinion drives the big gear to rotate the load shaft, and there is a sprocket on the load shaft. The meshing and disengagement of the big gear and the pinion is controlled by the clutch to control the rotation of the sprocket. The electric anchor winch can be equipped with a warping head according to the demand.

In the anchoring operation, when the clutch is detached, the main shaft and warping head rotate but the sprocket does not rotate, which can be used as the anchoring or mooring. When the clutch is engaged, the warping head and sprocket rotate simultaneously, which can be used for anchor lifting or deep water anchoring. A band brake is arranged on the sprocket to brake the sprocket to control the loose chain speed.

2. Marine Hydraulic Anchor Windlass: Marine hydraulic anchor windlass is also called marine electro-hydraulic anchor windlass, which uses the electric motor to drive the oil pump, high-pressure oil drives the hydraulic motor and then drives the transmission gear through the reducer (or no reducer) to make the anchor windlass run. Its structure is relatively compact and its volume is small. Now there is the marine automatic hydraulic anchor windlass, which is equipped with an anchor chain length sensor, which will stop automatically when all the anchor chains need to be thrown out; when the anchor is going to approach the anchor chain barrel, it can automatically slow down; the anchor stem will stop automatically when the anchor enters the anchor chain barrel.

3. Marine Diesel Engine Anchor Windlass: A diesel engine anchor windlass is a type of marine anchor windlass powered by a diesel engine. If ships anchoring in areas where there is no convenient power supply or power lacking, diesel anchor windlass are a viable option as they are independent of external power sources.