In Last week’s Just Cruising column, I asked the question of whether or not, in this age of advanced autopilots, windvane steering systems are still viable. Here are a few of the emails we received with comments from readers. GD
Hello George,
Fair question.
This month I was crew on the return trip from Antigua to New England (Outbound 44). We made a planned stop in Bermuda. The next morning a (Jeanneau 43) anchored a bit close to us. Later, the crew came by to apologize for being so close. Their reason: they had “lost our rudder” about 500 miles out and hand steered by Hydrovane alone to their arrival (hence, the anchoring maybe wasn’t perfect). Well, we were sure impressed. I know, not all wind vanes allow that independent steering. But, their Hydrovane got them there.
After a few minutes, all of our questions started to roll out. But we never spoke with them again and don’t have any more details. “Lost the rudder” can mean so many things.
This Outbound also had a very reliable autopilot tightly tied to the plotter’s software (using lots of power), but we had the Hydrovane set to go, only a few feet away.
So, you know my answer and, yes, I have both on my trusty Valiant 37.
Thank you for the Cruising Compass, I look forward to it every week.
Best regards
Brad Manter
s/v Jenny T
Portland, Maine
Hi George,
Agree completely with your comments on wind vane steering and have written similarly in a number of places. My Monitor remains on the stern in case we get hit with lightening and all electrical gets fried. But that is mostly laziness and when marinas and winter storage places bring out the tape measure for length overall, it will be removed.
For our last Atlantic crossing, which was high latitude, I did buy a new autopilot (same type exactly), installed it and put the still working just removed AP into spares after it had been driving the boat for most of the miles over 15+ years.
My best,
Dick Stevenson
s/v Alchemy
Hi George,
OK, I am at the end of my sailing career, a few months shy of 50 years continuous yacht ownership ended recently, so my views are probably a bit dated.
I have sailed with modern autopilots as a commercial skipper, and they are easy to use. However, for my own boats I like simplicity and ease of maintenance, plus I sailed on a relatively low budget, so the Monitor windvane was my primary steering aid on the last two boats (before that I had the original Windpilot on two other boats). A simple wheel pilot handled the boat under power with the smallest tiller pilot working the Monitor servo paddle as back up.
Sean
(And, we heard from our friends Sarah and Will Curry who own the Hydrovane company and live on their boat in the Med while also running the company. GD)
Hi George,
Hope life is good and keeping you busy! We’re curious about the responses receive back to your question about windvanes being viable.
I’m sure you know our stance as bluewater cruisers and owners of Hydrovane: having both an electronic autopilot AND a windvane is an ideal situation for offshore boats. We use the Hydrovane to steer anytime we’re on passage – it’s always in sync with sail trim, consumes no power, and doesn’t make any noise! It’s a beautiful thing.
We also love our electronic autopilot and use it for short hops with fluky wind or motoring (that being said, we have a tiller pilot hooked up to the Hydrovane, which can do the same thing).
Above all: we feel comfortable knowing that we’ll always have a means of steering in case of power loss, autopilot failure, main rudder loss, or linkage failure. The stories we hear from the many customers who have experienced such situations are especially beholden to their Hydrovane.
We’re in the Ionian islands of Greece at the moment, on our Leopard 46 catamaran. We’re getting ready to jump off for Sicily and work our way out of the Med and across the Atlantic this year. The twins just turned 5! Hard to believe.
Cheers from Kastos, Greece,
Sarah
Sarah Curry
Hydrovane International Marine Inc.
