Hydrovane

[LORDNELSON]

I am thinking of buying one of these windvanes for a 37 foot swing keel Southerly; and would be grateful for advice/experience about the Hydrovane, which seems the most suitable for my boat. Thank you.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[jerryat]

Hi Lord Nelson,

I'm not sure how well your Southerly tracks, particularly in a following wind, but unless it does so fairly well, you may be a little disappointed with a Hydrovane. My only direct experience of them is when I took a Vancouver 34 from Gib to the Canaries a year or five ago. The V34 has a relatively long keel and good directional stabililty, but we had a devil of a job getting the Hydrv to hold her on a reasonably steady course. We spent lots of time each day adjusting this or that, but in the end gave up and resorted to the Autohelm.

I don't think it was entirely down to lack of experience (we'd all done various ocean passages before) as we'd had litle or no problems with an Aries a couple of years previously. It may be that we missed something vital in the set-up, but if so, we still don't know what it was!! I have a couple of friends currently in the Med (no good for windvanes incidentally) who were also slightly disappointed, and indeed, one has now sold his.

I hope others more experienced with the marque will post possible answers to our experiences, which of course, to a greater or lesser degree, apply to all vanes when running. We just had better control with the Aries as others had with their Monitors, both of which control the main rudder, so it may be something to do with the Hydrovane 'rudder' size/position compared to the yacht's own. I do like the idea of having an emergency rudder though, so if I was going the windvane route, I'd add that option to a Monitor, my preferred choice at the moment.

Cheers

Jerry

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Rich_F]

I sailed a Rustler 36 with one of these a few years ago, and was extremely impressed. To the extent that I decided that if I ever owned my own yacht, I would definitely invest in wind-vane steering.

I now have my own yacht, and did make that investment, though not in a Hydrovane.

Rich

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[snowleopard]

the hydrovane is one of the less powerful vane gears as the vane acts directly on the rudder. if the boat is badly trimmed or hard-mouthed it is unlikely to cope. i would say that if you can get the boat to steer herself by trimming sails, at least for a few minutes at a time, then the gear will be ok. few vanes are really effective on a run because of the apparent wind problem.

years ago i had a gunning pendulum servo gear which worked pretty well though it allowed a lot of wandering downwind. that was the most powerful type of gear and was mounted on a tri which had great directional stability. even so i had to change to a super-size vane in lighter weather and downwind.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Sea Devil]

Have to say I am amazed at the previous posts.

Like all wind self steering gears it requires some practice to get used to setting it - like all self steering gears the boat needs to be reasonably balanced - in some ways it is easier to trim as you can use the main rudder to put a bit of main helm on... I have noticed crew who are used to electronic ss only do take a while to adapt -

My boat is an old Angus Primrose centre cockpit Moody 36.

My Hydrovane has sailed me around the world - I have crossed most of the major oceans with it and it has prooved far and away better than an Aeries or a Windpilot both of which I have owned on previous boats.

It's advantages are:
In very light airs over the stern (most of a circumnavigation is down wind) as little as 3knots apparent it will still steer the boat. The others I have mentioned absolutly will not at that wind speed.

As the wind pipes up It just steers better and better.

Because it is completly independant of the main rudder it requires far less apparent wind at any angle to steer than the others.

Also if the worst happens you can use the Hydrovane rudder to steer the boat as the main rudder. (I have lost a rudder once and its no fun)

You will probably need to have an electric auto - pilot to steer until you have the sails set and there is a very simple way of attaching a cheap eg Autohelm 1000 type to it.

All I can ad is that mine has controlled my boat over much of the 45-50,000 miles since fitting it and although some bits are now slightly worn all it really needs for next season is the socket to the rudder bushing out.

Dear me I sound like an ad - I really think its a brilliant bit of kit - arguably the best - sadly the new owners in Canada have not had the good grace to answer some emails I sent them re bushing out the rudder and are obviously not very good at service but it really is very substantialy made and you would have to be very unlucky to require much in the way of spares - which is a good thing ...

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.michaelbriant.com/sailing>http://www.michaelbriant.com/sailing</A><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Bambola on 03/10/2004 14:44 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[AOWYN]

I agree completely with the views of Bambola.

When we first fitted a Hydrovane to a Macwester 27 back in 1977/8 may father and I thought that it wasn't working very well because the heading, on a dead run in light winds was yawing about 5 degrees either side of mean over periods of several minutes(a Sestral Moore compass displayed the swinging very clearly in the flat water conditions of that day.)
It was only when we then noticed that the Windex appeared to be stuck that we realised that in only about 5 knots of wind the hydrovane was steering the boat so accurately to the apparent wind that the windex stayed put and the boat veered as the wind wandered around.

In 1979 the same gear, transferred to a Mirage 28, steered the boat all the way to the Azores and Back as it did again in 1983. 10 days of winds force 7 and above, up to force 9 as reported to us by the radio officer on a passing freighter, and the Hydrovane was the only crew on the tiller. More importantly with me struck down with Legionnaire's disease and my father having to tend to me as my lungs filled up and I passed into a coma, it was good to know that the Vane kept the boat heading upwind, without any adjustment for over six days.

In the 1983 AZAB, downwind with a cruising chute up and 10 knots showing on the speedo in the surges the Hydrovane coped so well that when we disengaged it, feeling that it would be safer having a hand on the tiller while crew went forward to hand the chute, it took only about 10 seconds to realise that the vane had been doing a better job of steering than I could.

It goes without saying that upwind the vane was better than any of us on the helm.

I appreciate that the actual experience and opinions of a boatie who is crazy enough to do the AZAB a couple of times in a twin-keel family cruiser without an ECD rating, gps,navtex, radar, fridge, water-maker etc are to be laughed at by many more modern sailors, but believe me Harry (as he was named) has been the best and most reliable piece of equipment I have ever had on a boat.

PS the Vane was named Harry after Harry Chapin's great song "A Better Place To Be" since with Harry at the helm there were better places to be than stuck at the stern in the spray going to windward.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[dulcibella]

The Hydrovane is certainly the vane of choice for centre-cockpit boats where the lines for a pendulum oar vane like the Aries or Monitor would be excessively long. However, its weakness is that, being unable to exploit the boat's movement through the water to generate turning power, it depends on a very large air vane to generate the force. This works fine for a well-balanced and steady boat (someone has already cited the Rustler, which is hardly a test as Rustlers virtually steer themselves) but may prove inadequate for less dedicated offshore cruising boats. Having said that, it is a well-designed and solid bit of kit with little to go wrong.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[R32Stbrigid]

I have a hydrovane, and cannot speak highly enough of it. An excellent piece of kit that just gets better the harder it blows ....

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[LORDNELSON]

Re: Hydrovane replies

Thank you to everyone for replying to my query. I now have to consider whether my boat can be well enough balanced to justify a windvane. Judging by our experience coming through the Looe channel last Saturday (gusting 35 knots) I have some work to do on balancing the sails and adjusting the swing keel!

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Sea Devil]

Re: Hydrovane replies

Really not that hard to balance - depends what you are going to do - if its to cross oceans you will end up buying lots of electronic self steering gears as they always break down...Partly I suspect because you are not aware how unbalanced the boat is and they cannot take the strain 24/7 for weeks...

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.michaelbriant.com/sailing>http://www.michaelbriant.com/sailing</A>