Project Origin
During the spring of 2021 my friend sent me a video of someone using a $10,000+ beach wake winch to launch people off a jump. It looked like a lot of fun and I figured we could get the same experience for less than a tenth of the cost if I designed and built one myself. So, I made one over the course of a couple weekends during the summer.
Design & Construction
I began by designing the parts that required fabrication in Fusion360. This consisted of the frame and spool as seen below in Figure 1. The frame is constructed with sections of 1.25” steel square tubing welded together. The spool is two, 20” diameter plates of ¼” aluminum mounted between sections of ½” galvanized steel conduit and held together with ½” threaded rod. The conduit served to prevent the rope from rubbing and potentially fraying on the threaded rod. The initial diameter of the spool rods was 12” but was dropped to 10” when built to increase the relative torque applied to the rider. A 1” shaft with a ¼” keyway runs through the spool and each end of the shaft rides on a slot mounted pillow bearing block that is bolted to the frame. Additionally, a sprocket for #40 roller chain is mounted on the left side of the spool (not visible in Figure 1).
Figure 1. Frame Design in CAD.
Figure 2. Completed Wake Winch with Wound Spool
Figure 3. Left Side of Winch
Figure 2, above, shows the completed winch. The engine and torque converter to sprocket assembly are visible in Figure 3. We used the winch several times before the summer was over. A test run can be viewed from the link at the top of the document. On the water it was able to achieve speeds of ~15 MPH, which was inline with my calculated estimates. Since the cheapest engine I could quickly get on Amazon was used, it seemed to struggle at times with torque which is why the spool diameter was decreased by 2” after an initial test. A future version would benefit from a power unit upgrade if the goal was to really launch people off jumps- otherwise, it has plenty of power for standard wake winching.
Parts List
17’ 1.5” (min) of 1.25” Square Tubing
(2x) Pillow Bearing Blocks: https://amzn.to/3GrXif1
(1x) Towing Tube (I used the Tow-Nut): https://amzn.to/3AUq9qY
(1x) 16HP DuroMax Engine: https://amzn.to/3HtzPv4
(1x) #40 Chain 35T Sprocket: https://amzn.to/3gmtKF6
(1x) Aluminum Hawse Fairlead: https://amzn.to/3GmTXxD
(1x) #40 Roller Chain: https://amzn.to/3sfu3H5
(2x) Small Utility Wheel & Tire: https://amzn.to/3L94hwP
(1x) Torque Converter: https://amzn.to/3Gqb6ql
(1x) 300+ ft of Dyneema or similar no stretch rope: https://amzn.to/3Grxy2r