be hauled in directly although the gear change incorporated in the winch arrangement can also be utilized when desired without requiring any adjustments to the winch block itself fig8 illustrates an alternative embodiment of a winch block constructed in accordance with the invention the friction coupling means for causing the wheel 25 to accompany the movement of the lever being replaced by a pawl 41 pivotally mounted on a shaft 40 the pawl 41 is of angular configuration and is so arranged that a leg of said pawl is caused to co act with a rear wall of the block housing for pivoting said pawl when the lever is returned to the starting position the other leg of the pawl is then drawn out of engagement with the teeth 43 of the wheel 25 this causes the line 6 to be released in the same manner as that described with reference to fig3 by drawing in the outgoing line part 13 in a manner such that the peg 38 snaps into the semi circular recess of the part 39 in this embodiment the upper sheave is replaced by a v shaped groove 42 arranged in the free end surface of the lever which groove enables the line to be slowed down by friction when lowering the load in said released position it being relatively simple to control the braking of said line by applying a small counter force on the outgoing line part 13 other elements and the mode of operation of the embodiment shown in fig8 are the same as those described with.