Self steering; which is the better system?

[ChrisE]

Its all very subjective, though, don't you think?

We have a centre cockpit yacht and fitted a hydrovane and have a tiller pilot for light airs. Our second Atlantic trip with the two of us was bliss after the problems with a belt driven autopilot on our first circuit. Often two handed and sometimes four and with the autopilot mostly broken we hand steered an awful lot. 3 hours on, 3 off for a few weeks means you get really good at it!! Also inventive in taking a leak......

Have taken a yacht transat a couple of times with a full crew, got them to steer by hand for practice but nice knowing a good autopilot was available. Once on the return trip however with fewer on board, the engine starter motor packed in so went for nearly a week to the azores with no electric, do consider that.

Have taken another boat over 3 up, belt broke 3 days from Antigua, spent hours trying to mend it, gave up. Same boat on way back blew exhaust flange on heat exchanger, 4 days hand steering 3 up.

Also had 2 completely incident free trips auto all the way!!

Delivered a yacht from Lanzarotte to Solent, towed generator. Have you ever tried to recover one when the wind gets up quickly? Need a flippin crane.

Hydrovane for me. You can offset them from centre with sugar scoop, works perfectly and you can still dangle yer tootsies!

Good sailing whatever you choose.

CS

We did 6000 miles with a towed generator and here's a few observations:

1. We lost about 1/2 - 1 knot boat speed when the wind was less than 15 or so knots, once above, hull speed was took over;

2. For a boat like ours with a fine stern, the generator acted as a bit of a drogue and held the boats bum into the following sea without the yawing that you get without it, thus we were able to do the transat with an under rated, cheap autopilot as it didn't have to keep bringing the stern back in line. Later, when we used the autopilot without the generator we trashed it in a couple of days of boisterous downwind sailing;

3. To get generator in when loaded is simple PROVIDED that you slide a funnel down the line to mask the turbine, alternatively you can, carefully mind, turn the engine on and slow the boat to make the operation more simple;

4. You get more than enough power to keep a fridge, autopilot and nav lights going with the batteries fully topped up.

We no longer use the generator as we now have both a Monitor windvane and a decent inboard autopilot. Like others we use the windvane for longer (>24 hour) offshore passages and the autopilot for short passages and light airs.

 

[RupertW]

Also some friends had to hand steer all the way after suffering some damage after a windy night. I can't imagine hand steering for 2 weeks straight

With four on board I found the 7 weeks total trip from France to Florida no problem hand steering all the way, and indeed a lot less boring.

When doing the same mid-Winter from France to Greece over ten days with just two of us non-stop it got a bit tedious especially as the boat wouldn't hold course for more than a few seconds - enough time to adjust a sail but not to grab a drink or leave the cockpit at all.

 

[timmygobang]

With four on board I found the 7 weeks total trip from France to Florida no problem hand steering all the way, and indeed a lot less boring.

blimey, I couldn't think of anything worse but fair play!

 

[Blueboatman]

Couple of observations ( without answering the OPs question)
My windvane drag is 0.2kn through the water off boat speed

In any sort of wind and sea it steers a straighter cause with less yaw than my ( very good, large) autopilot. So vmg is actually better .

It is nice to have a boat that will sail itself to weather without either.

 

[KellysEye]

>I have a Hydrovane wind vane, a Raymarine wheel pilot

That's what we had. Windvanes are primarily used on long passages, if you don't do those then just buy an autopilot.

>Hydrovane is very good, if a bit fiddly to balance the boat perfectly. However, when the the seas are really rough the blade comes out of the water

If it's difficult to balance the boat and the blade comes out of the water I suspect the size of the Hydrovane is too small for the length/weight of the boat, we didn't have either of those problems. It's a typical problem if the unit is bought second hand and the purchaser hasn't asked Hydrovane what size is needed, I've seen that twice. Obviously that may not apply in this case.

 

[Neil_Y]

I experienced similar performance to ChrisE Bav390 with an Aquair towed generator and an ST6000 autohelm.

The Aquair is a really well made bit of kit performed faultleslly for over 10,000nm over a years cruise. Another time when we needed the autohelm was when the steering broke on a Sweden 38 one day out of the Canaries, we could only steer from the quadrant and didn't fancy jury rigging something for an atlantic crossing so turned back and motored upwind back to the Canaries (which was rough going) Our only steering option then was the autohelm.

 

[Neil_Y]

I experienced similar performance to ChrisE Bav390 with an Aquair towed generator and an ST6000 autohelm.

The Aquair is a really well made bit of kit performed faultleslly for over 10,000nm over a years cruise. Another time when we needed the autohelm was when the steering broke on a Sweden 38 one day out of the Canaries, we could only steer from the quadrant and didn't fancy jury rigging something for an atlantic crossing so turned back and motored upwind back to the Canaries (which was rough going) Our only steering option then was the autohelm.

 

[[10753]]

I have both (Wind & Autopilot) - the advantage of the Vane Gear is its always ready to just drop in gear whereas the electronic one is mostly stowed away. Under power the electronic gear is the better option. Under sail I prefer the Vane gear as its so quiet unlike the buzzing of the autohelm. For some unknown reason my Vane Gear will always steer for floating objects and sometimes has a complete mind of its own.