DIY Wakeboarding winch
posted Dec 28th 2007 11:29pm by Will O'Brienfiled under: misc hacks
[exhaltingidiotz] is just one of the guys who’s built his own wakeboard winch. These things are pretty low tech, but using a winch to wakeboard has to be one of the most original ideas that I’ve seen in a while. Winches have some interesting advantages over boats: less fuel, no licensing and shallow water that no boat or jet ski would ever work in suddenly becomes usable. Here’s a basic design that’s typical and a simple demo video. The forums are a bit annoying to search for info, so here’s a fantastic winch build writeup.
Sailplane pilots use huge versions of these to snatch gliders into the air. This is especially common in Europe where fuel is expensive. The basic principle is much like running with a kite. With a few thousand feet of open space to pull the cable out over, they can get altitudes of over 1000 feet. It’s quite an experience; the ground roll is maybe a hundred feet, and most of the climb is done at about a 45 degree angle! This photo will give you a bit of an idea what it looks like; the winch is out of sight over the rise in the background.
http://www.gull.us/photos/misc/winchlaunch.jpg
Glider winches are sometimes based off of truck drivetrains — basically a big engine, transmission (generally set up to stay in 2nd gear for the whole run, to avoid any jolts from shifting), and differential, with the winch drums replacing the wheels. A similar conversion based on a moped might make a good wakeboard winch, with a lot less fabbing involved than building the whole thing from scratch.
Posted at 3:19 am on Dec 29th, 2007 by Orv