We have a friend with lots of experience of both Hydrovane and Windpilot. He has had them both on performance oriented boats. He has owned an aluminium race boat he had built, a Pogo and a 40ft cruiser racer. He explained to me that the Windpilot suits heavier boats better than the Hydrovane. The Hydrovane suits lighter displacement boats that will surf on waves. He said that on his 40ft cruiser racer the Hydrovane was so slow to react that the boat would surf and the Hydrovane wouldn't sense the change in apparent wind quick enough to steer the boat. As a result the boat didn't round up. Its slow response actually worked for him. Do the same thing on that lightweight boat with a Windpilot and the boat is likely to round up due to the faster response of the Windpilot. Since we don't readily surf, the Windpilot works well for us.
is yours the Pacific or the Pacific Plus?
Pacific. It more powerful than the pacific plus according the designer I spoke to.
We have a long fin cruising boat and we’ve had no real problems with confused seas so far. Not perfect but nowhere near the disaster you describe. In 2700 miles with some very confused swells we intervened very few times.
Interesting piece here about the use of windvanes in the Golden Globe...... Golden Globe Race windvane safety and GGR 2026 open for entries
For clarity G what are the specifics of your craft please?From a performance perspective, I don't think there is much to choose between Aries, Windpilot or Monitor, etc. They are all servo pendulum designs using the main rudder to steer the boat. They are powerful designs that can steer heavy boat effectively.
We had an issue on ours when we first installed the Windpilot. All servo pendulum wind steering systems are designed to turn wheel that have a lock to lock of no ore than about 2.5 turns. This is inherent in the design of all of them.
Our steering is 3.5 turns lock to lock. This meant that the windpilot couldn't apply sufficient lock. I solved the problem by addingm1:2 pulley blocks in the steering lines. This doubled the steerage at the wheel. The results was a game changer. The Windpilot is so powerful that even with our barn door none, balanced rudder, it easily develops enough power to steer the boat. It is now far less sensitive to sail trim. Its wonderful to watch the self steering pile on a full turn of the wheel in response to a large wave. It does this quicker than I could do.
In following seas and 25/30kts of wind with the boat set up goose winged with a poled out genoa and reefed main she will steer perfectly even through squalls with no balance problems. Very reassuring. The only downside is the course isn't as straight as with the autopilot. We call our Wanda the Windpilot
Trintella 44 ketch
Very nice ! Have you offset the vane or only use when not flying the mizzen? In addition I take it you run the control lines back to the centre cockpit, which for some strange reason the makers don't seem to recommend on their website......though I can't see why!
The Windpilot is located in the centre of the transom. Works fine when using the mizzen. Control lines run down one side of the deck and to the centre cockpit. We get so used to the lines being there we don't even think about it.
It seems the concern is the 'break tube' that is the paddle arm. These are available in different lengths depending on the freeboard. My Monitor was second hand and the paddle arm was too long. Rather than import short lengths of ss tube from the USA I made my own using what I had available, but cut a notch to give a break line should the paddle be hit. Presumably, the GGR modification is a thicker/stronger paddle arm tube that won't crumple.
