Abstract: A rope handling system for an offshore vessel for handling of synthetic rope (3) for heavy lifting and deployment operations offshore, the system comprising multiple winch drums (11) adopted for housing a predetermined length of rope (3), a spooling system (13, 17) to spool in and spool out rope on the drums (11), a transfer system comprising of sheaves (14, 21, 22) for leading the rope (3) between a drum (11) and a traction winch (15), the traction winch (15) comprising three or more sheaves (30), where the sheaves are arranged so that rope may be arranged from one sheave to the next substantially following a common tangent of the two sheaves and so that the rope rests against about half the circumference of each sheave, and where each sheave operated by an independent motor (32), and where a rope stopper (4) is arranged downstream of the traction winch relative to the drum (11) upstream of the traction winch, is described.