Winches

A winch is rarely just a drum and a motor. It must be matched to the wire, line pull, duty cycle and load behaviour and it usually needs to integrate with a launch-and-recovery system, deployment frame or drill spread. We design and build winches across the full range and often size bespoke units when off-the-shelf options are either oversized or underpowered for the job. We engineer the winch, drive, braking, control and structural interface together, under single-party accountability.

The range

Tap each tool to expand.

Winch	Class / duty	Drive	Control
Heavy-lift winch	15 t-class heavy lift, deep deployment	Hydraulic or electric	Proportional, remote; pairable for heavier duty
Man-riding winch	~3 t-class personnel hoisting	Hydraulic or electric	Double-braked, proportional, fail-safe; man-riding-compliant
Utility / grab winch	~4 t-class material handling & grab duty	Hydraulic or electric	Proportional, remote
Active constant-tension winch	Low, gentle tension for umbilicals & hoses	Hydraulic or electric	Load-cell closed-loop active CT
Hydraulic constant-tension winch	Robust high-tension for wire rope & heavy lifts	Hydraulic	Pressure-differential CT
Active heave compensation winch	Constant-depth deployment through heave	Hydraulic or electric	MRU-referenced active heave comp
Deployment & draw-works winches	Seabed-frame deployment, drill draw-works (typically split-drum, twin-wire)	Hydraulic	Per spread; constant-tension where needed
Compact / small winches	~1 t-class spooling, free-fall, trigger and reeler duties	Hydraulic, electric or manual	Manual / remote, sized to the job
Custom winch	A bespoke unit engineered to a specific challenge	To suit	To suit

Drive type is selected to suit the spread: hydraulic where a shared HPU already powers the deck equipment, or where high stall torque and simplicity matter; electric direct-drive where clean power, fine controllability or no hydraulic infrastructure is preferred.

Capacities are the class the unit serves; exact line pull, wire, speed and drive are engineered to the duty and confirmed at enquiry.

How we deliver it

• Hydraulic or electric drive – hydraulic piston motor and planetary gearbox as standard (sharing a single HPU across a spread), or electric direct-drive where a duty justifies it; a winch-duty-rated HPU and cooling sized to continuous operation.
• Fail-safe braking – spring-applied, hydraulically-released brakes with counterbalance load-holding; double-braked and higher safety factors for man-riding.
• The full control range – manual and remote (radio walk-around), and the tension/motion modes from our heave-control family: load-cell active constant-tension, hydraulic constant-tension and active heave compensation. See heave compensation.
• Designed to standard – to DNV offshore lifting-appliance and marine-operations codes (and mine-shaft / man-riding codes where the duty demands), with the structural interface engineered in.
• Bespoke when needed – where no catalogue winch fits, we size and build one that does, integrated into the LARS, frame or spread it serves.

Our winches integrate naturally with our LARS, cable & hose reelers, line tensioners and deployment spreads, one controllable handling philosophy across the deck.