ARCO Winches

Hi,

Does anyone have any experience with using ARCO winches? I know they are a great source of parts/advice for Barient and Barlow winches but I would like an opinion on their winches. They seem like a great deal: $1440 delivered with minor spares for a pair of bronze 40ST winches. Compared to $2100 for a pair of bronze Lewmar 40ST's, that seems like a great deal.

Any advice would be appreciated,

Dan Scolaro
Goccia E31C #28

speaking of Barient...

I was going to order parts from ARCO for my Barients... but West Marine carries spare parts (pawls, springs, etc...) on their website. Just FYI.

Just in general- I wouldn't order winches that are no longer in production (Barient) if at all possible. I'd stick with Lewmar. Just my $0.02.

Chris

Lots of choices....

Note that you could get a pair of top-rated Andersen 46ST's for about $1K apiece new.
I watched a factory rep strip one down at last year's Sail Expo and it appears very well designed, for both operation and servicing.

My .02 worth,
Loren

thanks

Thanks for the input. I am particulary interested in getting winches with bronze drums so that eliminates Andersen I think. The only winches I know of that are currently in product that offer this feature are Lewmar, ARCO and LVJ. Any other manufacturers I should know of?

Thanks again,

Dan Scolaro
Goccia E31C #28

Which winchs are bronze?

Dan, Harken also makes bronze winches.....at a price. When one of the original self tailing, bronze, 1-speed Barlow 23's on our E31 stripped the center post threads and no replacement for that part could be found, I was almost ready to plunk down the cash for a pair of new Harken, self tailing, bronze, 2-speed 40's (equivalent to the Barlow 23's or one size larger, can't remember) but hesitated because I was choking on the price of $2,200+ for the pair. Might I suggest that if you can be happy with used winches you venture a try that paid off for me? Many years ago I developed a used marine hardware vendors list that has since become (and has expanded) the core of the Marine Consignment List provided by Good Old Boat Magazine in their online offering. It's free to all and is a great resource of places all over the country and even Canada for those looking for just the right used part. I ended up finding a lovely pair of used, self tailing, bronze, 2-speed Barlow 23's at a vendor in Rhode Island? for $650 plus shipping for the pair. They had old and worn chrome on them so all I did was to run the drums and stripers by my local plating shop for a quick dip in the pool and they came out looking like brand new bronze winches. I'll even send you an image back channel of one of them right after installation as an insparation to try used first. That was at least two or three years ago and both of them are are still going great guns. Glyn, E31 hull #55

Generally good stuff BUT

The Arco stuff is not bad, I used to order them in all the time for clients, Had a couple of them on Pneuma that did fine for over 35,000 miles.....

You do have the watch the quality ocassionaly with ARCO, most of the time very good, and they are pretty exact copies of the original Barient Design, which in my not too humble opnions is still light years ahead of the rest.

Harken's newest winches in fact use the now expired self tailing patent of the Barient self tailing device. Of Course labeled as "New".

If you deal with Arco expect to have them bill your CC immidately on order, and then to take forever 4-6 months seemed normal for me, and then you will have to ride their butts to get them to send you the product.

Guy