Another option is to buy a deck plug and mount it to your bumper. You'll have to cut a hole in most bumpers to do this. One truck manufacturer has a handy dandy hole in just the right spot on their step bumper. Unfortunately it's there for access for a crank to lower your spare tire. If you use it, make sure you carry tools to remove your plug in case of a flat!

If you've ordered a boat and want to wire your vehicle for a winch while you await delivery, get the cable from your dealer or manufacturer. Winches use a lot of juice and you want to use the fuse built into the cable. A friend of mine, involved with his first boat purchase, failed to do this and hired someone knowing less than he to wire a plug to his battery. The 18-gauge wire used for his "arrangement" smoked pretty good for the five seconds it powered his winch enough to make noise before it burned.

You can also use battery clamps to hook up each time you retrieve your boat by building a custom harness and running it from the battery to the winch, simply draping it over the vehicle to use it. But by the time you've done all the work and retrieved the boat five or six times, you'll realize you would have spent less time rigging a permanent connection.

Like everything else, there are easy and hard ways to use your new toy to dump your boat into the water. Many like to use the winch cable and the built-in clutch mechanism to control the boat's descent into the water. When you do this you have to crawl out on the trailer, unhook the boat from the cable, fasten a line to the bow eye, and push the boat to the dock. I prefer to unceremoniously dump the boat with my line already attached after freeing it from the winch. It allows me to simply walk the boat around to my parking spot with my bow line. I have a small boat though and typically launch in uncrowded settings. You may need the control of the cable and clutch, and the units are designed to withstand use this way.

The size of your boat will determine how you hook up to load it back onto your trailer. With my smallish skiff I shove off from the dock while aboard and can easily reach the waiting hook. A bigger boat may not allow you to reach the hook and you may have to stand on your trailer and drag the boat to you with your bow line or enlist a friend to drive the boat to you. A leash connected to the winch switch, running to the rear of the trailer, allows you to pulse the winch motor and start the boat onto the trailer before you winch it up from the front.

Either way it's best to get everyone off the boat before you winch it onto the trailer just in case there's a cable failure. You also want to take up any cable slack you have with tension so it's wound firmly on the winch drum. There's no need to help the cable onto the drum, either. A stray broken strand of wire may bite you and the winch cleverly level-winds on its own. You should leave your vehicle running while retrieving your boat too, powering the winch from your alternator rather than the battery.

I've never done much maintenance work on any of my winches. The cable deserves some lubrication once in a while. You can use any general silicone type spray to soak it as you wind it on the drum. Better might be one of the heavy-duty marine lubricants like Corrosion Block or Boeshield. When I can find it, I like spray white lithium grease.

You'll find most trailers deliver pretty good self-centering action once you've got your boat firmly on the center roller. It's far easier to get your boat on the trailer straight when it's not semi floating over a sunken trailer. The convenience and cost of a power winch is cheap insurance for your vessel, tow vehicle and especially your trailer.