Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Capstan rope winches experience?

I bought a Simpson rope winch years ago, but it hasn't been out of its backpack in a while. I used it to pull a deer up out of a valley and the boat lift in a few times, but that's been it. 2,000 pound single line pull and less than 20 pounds must be more usable for something that I haven't thought of. What kind of things to guys use them for?

Buy one. Carry it. Hope to never use it.

Got one to help with getting Elk outta hard spots, works well for that.
Attempted to use it as assist on getting the pickup out of a mild stuck in the mud situation, worthless at that.

They work. Capstans (aka windlass) have been used to hoist the anchors on millions of ships over the last 500 years. They're also used for any kind of heavy pulling required aboard ships.
One will get an elk out of a canyon assuming you can get it to a place where the ropes can do the job and that it has the power for the load.

Jeff, what was the issue with pulling the pickup? 2,000 pounds of pull is a lot to my way of thinking. I pulled my F-150 up a hill once just to see if I would snub it and it never did. I bought 300' of no stretch rope with mine because pulling a big buck a couple hundred yards up a big hill with a manual boat winch was way more work than I ever wanted to do again.

Big difference in pull strength needed to pull a truck rolling on its tires up a hill VS pulling a stuck truck out of whatever its stuck in.

Most vehicle winches are rated for pulling power, not dead lift. Pulling power is how much rolling load it can pull up a moderate slope on a hard surface. That's at best 1/3 of a deadlift. A 6k pulling power winch might be only able to deadlift 2k.
If you can find a capstan winch rated for 2k deadlift, that's as powerful as a 6k vehicle winch rated for a pulling power. I just looked on Amazon at capstan winches. Every one I saw was rated for pulling power. Dragging an elk over dirt and rocks through brush has a lot more resistance than a rolling load on wheels on a hard surface.

And can be downright dangerous! This happened a few weeks ago. Loaded up the rubber band known as a tow strap and when the tow hitch broke; it shot back into the truck, instantly killing the driver. Mom and kids were all in the truck at the time too.

I've had a Simpson capstan winch for a while now and used it to pull a couple deer and a couple elk out of canyons and it works great for that as long as the rope you have is rated for the load. Don't try to use some cheap 1/4" rope to pull something like that out of a hole. I've tried a couple times to get my truck out when I was forced into a ditch in very icey conditions a couple times and it didn't work at all. Just not enough power to pull a full sized truck even out of a small ditch.

I've pretty much stopped using it years ago when I got tired of carrying all the stuff you need to use one- winch with motor, gas, rope, and whatever blocks or other accessories you may need for your recovery efforts. On top of that, we always seemed to have this one guy in camp who always wanted to argue about how to attach the rope, how to rig everything, how the machine should be run, etc.... Well, he is no longer in our camps, but it left a bad taste in my mouth on top of all the other things and I haven't carried it in years. May want to pack it this year though as the place we are elk hunting has some very steep canyons and I have plenty of rope to get quite a ways down ...

Chain can and will do the same

We used one last year to pull a bull moose my buddy killed out of the marsh. He had 1400 ft of no stretch winch rope.
Worked so good that when we got him to the edge we repositioned and pulled him all the way up the mountain.

We've had an old Simpson winch since forever. In our neck of the woods it's just referred to as "go get the elk winch"

Just wouldn't do it.
The truck wasn’t stuck all that bad, it was trying to lift itself out under its own power.

Hooked up the winch just to assist and there wasn't even a noticeable difference.

Got another truck hooked to it with a good tow line and was out in a matter of seconds.

That can be prevented by tossing jackets/sleepingbags/blankets, anything you have handy over the tow strap will slow the strap from recoiling back like that if it fails.

They sell weighted tow strap dampers just for this reason, if you don't have them, use what ya got.

If you know your at high risk of your tow setup failing you can add weight by soaking whatever your using, the more weight the more effective.

I've seen ankle weights with velcro straps used effectively as dampers when placed along a tow line too.

They had it hooked to a receiver hitch ball....they are not a recovery points!

The difference between a windlass and a capstan is a simple one. A windlass has a horizontal shaft and a capstan has a vertical shaft. Just another piece of seamanship knowledge that I no longer have any use for but will never forget.

We use capstan’s in the oilfield for deep well wireline work, and the shafts on the capstans were horizontal.

Sailing terms don't always translate well to other terms. We used capstan winches for pulling wires when I was an electrician and the capstan could be any direction you could make it work. Same as the Simpson winches- the capstan is whatever direction works and sometimes it will spin different directions during the pull. In most cases a capstan winch is one where the line isn't permanently wrapped around the capstan, allowing unlimited amount of line to be used for the project, regardless of orientation.

I understand that different industries develop there own uses and names for devices that they find helpful. That said capstans and windlasses where in use aboard ships many centuries before they found a home in the oil field or electrical industry. Not looking for an argument but I think a dictionary or maybe google will verify what I said.

There is some pretty incredible climbing hardware out there these days(albeit , pricey) but the old static climbing rope, a few carabiners and some pulleys and prussik rope could get most anything we had stuck years ago out of the woods....snowmobile, elk, etc.