Kelpie
Well-Known Member
Does nobody use windvanes anymore?
Best Bluewater Cruising boats?
- Thread starter alant
- Start date
If you believe that you are not ready to independantly skipper a transat. Cummulative fatigue on the steering system from downwind ocean sailing is very different to a lumpy bash across Biscay.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Oh, so pretty similar to the downwind normal trip past Portugal to the Canaries then? Which is much longer than the nip across Biscay.......
dom
Well-Known Member
In a way you're right, for certain boats in certain conditions. But seas are different and some seas will overwhelm old kit, 100% sure they will -- way before modern kit. An ST5000 is pre-2000 gear and like an old Nokia it's functional but semi-prehistoric in IT terms. It works, but it's slow and limited, which is why many opt to capture the massive advance in technology. And why not, it's one of the gifts of our generation, not for everyone but as with an iPhone/Samsung it is for many.
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Koeketiene
Well-Known Member
Great things have been achieved by naieve and ill-informed people.
Quite.
That's why most people dread a Biscay crossing but refer to crossing the Atlantic as 'the milk run'.
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Minchsailor
Well-Known Member
Me!!
Monitor on my last boat (Nicholson32), Hydrovane on my present (Rustler36).
When I was much longer I was doing a yacht positioning trip of a 60ft yacht when the engine failed (injector pump) and we couldn't use the electrical autopilot as we had to save the batteries. Hand steered some 1200 miles. There were 5 of us, so not so bad; but I don't trust relaying on electrics long term.
Type "YouTube windvane ocean" into Google and you will be surprised by the amount of video footage of bluewater sailors leaning over the transom trying to fix their windvane on passage.
GHA
Well-Known Member
Exactly, you can fix your windvane with some epoxy or bits of string and cable ties enough to get across an ocean, one surface mount component goes on an electric one and game over. MAYS chandlers in Horta has shelves full of bust autopilots.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Instead of typing, 'do' windvane across the atlantic. I have, no problems.
Hydrovane rules, ok.Gerry
Well-Known Member
Instead of typing, 'do' windvane across the atlantic. I have, no problems.
Absolutely.
When we first went cruising we left with two autopilots, one electric, one hydraulic and a monitor windvane unit.
Both autopilots have been replaced once and all fried in lighning strikes- both now retired.
Fixed the Monitor once at sea when the sacrificial tube snapped in a knock down, ocassionally replaced ropes at sea too for chafe managment.
Seventeen years later we sail with the Monitor only. No way would we bother replacing the electronic units- not repairable, expensive and power hungry.
Learn to use a windvane- you will never regret it.
Koeketiene
Well-Known Member
We have both an electronic AP and a Monitor windvane.
When daysailing local waters or congested waters we use the acient - but utterly reliable - Cetrek electronic AP. Drawbacks: bit noisy and quite powerhungry.
On longer passages the Monitor is all we need. The windvane wasn't quite as intuitive as I had hoped, but after a year of 'trail and error' I would not want to be without it.
dom
Well-Known Member
Kelpie
Well-Known Member
Maybe I was just lucky, but when I bolted a Navik windvane onto the back of my Vega, I set out that same day and completed a non-stop trip from Stornoway to Barra, running goosewinged most of the way in fairly light winds. No fettling or adjustments required. I don't actually know what 'setting up' a windvane entails as I never consciously had to do it.
alant
Well-Known Member
Is that a hint for a teach in?
Minchsailor
Well-Known Member
Just maybe the video of a guy fiddling with the interior of an Autopilot might not be so entertaining.
Proof is in the pudding. I did some 25K trouble free miles with the Monitor. The previous owner of my current Rustler spent 8 years sailing it around the world; again he said with no probs. I have got through several autohelms/tiller pilots in the last 25 years, and that is using them only for motoring.
tcm
...
Great things have been achieved by naieve and ill-informed people.
Quite.
That's why most people dread a Biscay crossing but refer to crossing the Atlantic as 'the milk run'.
Um, the assumption seems to be that everyone on the ARC will have just arrived from Northern Europe, and is doing it for the first time. But the fact is that some spectacularly experienced sailors make the trip every year.
Checking-wise ... - your rig (or anything) might be fine in Gib (or UK) but have a problem enroute to the Canaries. Using your logic, the reason that it's just bound to be fine now is that it was fine just five minutes ago! AND it made the trip all the way here! Sadly not true. Many long-distane boats for sale show so-so maintenance but the owners stand by the fact that it sailed round the world so it's "proven" as a result! Whereas it could much more likely be "knackered" as a result of the very same trip. Boats aren't as reliable as anvils in the long term.
Koeketiene
Well-Known Member
Why just not stay in bed? It's a bad, bad world out there.
When you cross the street, you could get run over by a car. The best perpared boat can still get struck by lightning or hit a half-submerged container at night.
The bullet-proof, perfect boat does not exist.
If I choose to wait till I've got a bullet-proof, perfect boat I'll never go anywhere.
I know my boat is 'less than perfect' in some aspects, but I'm still going anyway. We all do our own risk assesment, and after more than 30 years at sea - in one capacity or another - I like to think I'm more than qualified to make my own.
As for rigging: under previous ownership, our boat has been around the world once and crossed the Atlantic 4 times. In 2010 I had the rigging replaced. The rigger (who I trust implicitly) said that it was still the original rigging - 26 years old. His comment: 'Your old rigging didn't owe anyone a living, but it wasn't about to come down anytime soon'.
I'm not going to worry about my new rigging in the near future.
These responses contradict an earlier claim that windvanes are "reliable", the best that can be claimed is that they are diy repairable.
As electro/mechanical science improves the chance of a trouble free atlantic crossing shifts in favour of an autopilot. Who wants unscheduled abdomninal surgery performed by an aft cleat half way across the Atlantic when hanging off the end of a rediculously pinched IOR corrupted stern of some mabby ancient Brit design like a Salder while such an unstable hull, fundamentally unsuited to downwind sailing, rolls 40 degress side to side.
Kelpie
Well-Known Member
I think you are being quite selective in which responses you are considering. There are several very happy vane users who have posted on this thread.
As to your point about electronics becoming more reliable over time, well you must live on a differnt planet to me. Electronics in general become more feature laden and complex, and the time between replacements becomes shorter, but I don't see a general trend towards greater reliability.
GrahamM376
Well-Known Member
Are they replaced because of faults or, because a new model available which has more bells and whistles? I suspect some treat their boat electronics like their phone or tablet - must have the latest model, regardless of the fact the old one works fine.
