[Aur0r4]

One thing to keep in mind is how your cable stacks up on the drums. If it starts piling in one spot, the radius increases and it wants to haul in more cable per turn. If your un-spooling drum isn't keeping up, they're going to start fighting each other...and your winch will stall or something will break.

A continuous loop design, like you say, helps avoid this, especially if your drum is wide enough and your cables aligned well, as it will only keep one layer of wraps across the drum.

Better yet....have your lathe folks cut spiral lagging (round-bottom groove) into the drum surface so that the cable always sits where it is supposed to. As a crane guy, that's how you get pro at cables on drums.