Design of Energy Efficient Fishing Winch Systems

This paper presents the analysis of the possible energy savings by using modern high efficient electric winch systems with regulated electric drives on fishing trawler vessels. High intensity operation profile of fishing trawlers with specific trawling operations offers the possibility of using high efficiency electric winch systems to recover or regenerate a significant percentage of the energy during trawling operation back into the ship electric system or batteries. The paper gives analysis of winch system dynamics and energy requirements during trawling operations and possible overall savings in ships emissions compared to classic hydraulic or electric winch systems by exploiting modern electric winch drive systems for energy recovery.