Building a windvane

[FergusM]

I have a copy of Bill Belcher's book on building your own windvane self-steering gear, but I cannot understand his engineering drawings. It just looks like a confusing mass of solid and dotted lines to me, and I don't know what 82 mm p.c.d. means. He does not tell you how to attach the bottom of the shaft vane if you fit an auxiliary rudder, and his drawings for a vertical vane do not give any idea of how to change the setting or connect it to the tiller. There are no photographs of gears, nor any perspective drawings to help me see what the actual parts in the technical drawings look like.

I am very disappointed, although I do realise it may well be my own shortcomings to blame. The blurb did not say that you have to be a qualified engineer to build one. I have re-read the book repeatedly in an attempt to see how to go about it, but without success.

Does anyone know of a book or a source of plans from which someone who can do a bit of woodworking but is no engineer can build a windvane? If not, I will just have to keep saving for a commercial vane, but they are expensive. My boat is a 27 foot Albin Vega.

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[Rowana]

PCD is Pitch Circle Diameter. Usually a series of holes on a circle of, in this case, 82mm. If you find that the book is of no use to you, I could be interested.

Jim

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[webcraft]

Have a look at

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[johnsomerhausen]

I don't know whether it is the site that Nick mentioned, but a Dutchman had a site on the web giving allt he plans and photos of a diy windvane using common materials. Maybe looking with google at "windvane" would get it back for you
john

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[warby1212]

A nice person on this forum gave me these links:


http://www.mindspring.com/~waltmur/Self-Steering/

http://cruisenews.net/cgi-bin/windvane/windvane.pl

one day. . . .

Cheers
Stephen

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[richardandtracy]

It took me a long while to figure out how most wind vanes work myself - I was expecting them to be much more complicated than they are.

I have a drawing set I downloaded off the net (forgotten the address so I can't direct you there again or give the proper credits to the person who so richly deserves them, sorry!). To read the drawing set you will need AutoCAD or IntelliCAD, the latter has been a freebie on many computer magazine fronts or can be downloaded from http://www.cadopia.com/ . If you've got WinXP DON'T load IntelliCAD 2000 as it crashes on WinXP. PM me with your e-mail address if you want the set. The drawings are in a file called 'Feb2001DWGzip.zip' (may help avoiding duplication if you find it by another route).

The way the vane works indicates how they're made to a great extent. If you're not fully clear on that point, the rest can seem absolutely baffling. There is a good assembly drawing in the drawing set I've got which gives a 3D view of the vane (a GOOD picture is worth 1000 words).

How the vane works:-
First the boat is set up to sail on it's own at an angle to the wind. Then the wind vane is loosened and swiveled on its shaft so that any change in wind direction will twist the shaft. The blade in the water is lined up with the boat's track through the water. The ropes to the tiller are set up with no slack.

When the wind is not in the correct direction relative to the boat the vane will come into play. If the vane is a simple one it will simply rotate the shaft, and hence the blade in the water. If it is a pendulum type, the pendulum tips over acting on a lever which then rotates the blade in the water (the added complication gives more power). Then the water flowing over the blade in the water acts on the blade to pivot the whole assembly to port or stbd about the boat's centreline around a pivot. This water driven action provides the power to pull on a rope that goes up over the stern to move the tiller to the left or right (as appropriate).

And that's it. It really is that simple.

The fittings on the tiller are up to you. You could put a simple loop around the tiller, or go as fancy as cleats & stoppers. That's so much to personal preference I imagine it's why Bill Belcher's book didn't mention it.

I hope this helps a little, say if I may be of further use.

Regards

Richard.


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