tiller pilot/self steer

Tranona said:
Perhaps you should read Charles' whole sentence - not the bit you want to read! He qualified his statement by saying useless in the med. Exactly what other people have found - does not normally cope well with light fickle winds or when motorsailing - conditions which account for the majority of "sailing" in the Med. An interfaced autopilot earns its keep in these conditions. Different if you are sailing in open waters with significant and relatively predictable wind.

Think most coastal cruisers find the downsides of wind vanes are not offset by advantages.
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Funny i thought he wrote:-
" in any case servo-wind pilots are only good for offshore work - never any use in the Med."
That to me made 2 statements, the first that they are only good for offshore work & second that they are no good in the med
I commented on the use offshore. I have absolutely no experience of use in the med so made no comment.

However, since you raise the point i cannot wonder why they would be no use in the med.
In medium to strong winds situations i would have thought they would be great- but less so in light winds
But - as i said- i have no experience of the med
But design & use of self steering gear has interested me for years. Even from my model yacht days & i am aware that setting up & trimming of some gear can be an art. That is possibly why you see so many sets on the back of yachts that suggest they are not being used to their full. It may also be the reason the person made the statement. I certainly would be inclined to question it even without med experience
Perhaps those who have may care to comment
 
I bought a Simrad TP22 two seasons ago, and have tried it in all sorts of situations. (Rival 32), mainly for singlehanding.
Boat is best balanced on jib only, and it eats this with ease and low power consumption, in winds up to F6-7.
With main and Jib, it works a little harder, but still manages up to about F5-6. It manages motorsailing no differently.
Motoring only its perhaps at ease most, but that's prettylight duty. (It did St Kilda to Barra once, motoring in zero wind the whole trip)
Biggest weakness? Very steep waves. Tried in once west of Islay in heavy weather, and it could not really cope. It lacks intuition, which is what's needed then I think. It can't anticipate, only react.
Waterproof? Been under a few waves, been in heavy rain, and so far no sign of leakage.

Comparison?
Never tried any others, so can't compare, but so far can't fault it.
 
Has anyone made an integrated servo/tiller pilot? I'm thinking along the lines of using a tiller pilot type device to drive the servo paddle of a wind vane system. It solves the two problems of a) wind vane no good down wind in light airs or "The MED" and tiller pilot drawing too much current for little boats on long passages. If no one has thought of it yet I here by claim it as my IP ;-)
 
I would imagine a tiny tiller pilot would work quite well as is on a servo paddle. If I remember rightly you just mount it on the other side or the other way around for reverse sense motion. olewill
 
Buck Turgidson said:
Has anyone made an integrated servo/tiller pilot? I'm thinking along the lines of using a tiller pilot type device to drive the servo paddle of a wind vane system. It solves the two problems of a) wind vane no good down wind in light airs or "The MED" and tiller pilot drawing too much current for little boats on long passages. If no one has thought of it yet I here by claim it as my IP ;-)
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Sorry, it's old hat -- but good thinking. You mount it above the pivot which holds the wind vane (having removed the vane and, as WilliamH wrote, reversing the TP's direction sense). It works very well, too. Used that way, even the smallest tiller pilot can steer a 60-footer with minimal current draw.

BTW, you seem to have accepted that "The MED" and wind vanes don't mix. It's not their happiest hunting ground but, as I wrote in post #39, in my experience this is not so.
 
Sorry about the drift.
Any recommendations for wheel's?
I like steering.
Just recently my son and I completed 300 plus mile trip without an auto pilot. About the halfway point on the 100 mile 40 hr. slog to windward I came to the conclusion. An auto pilot might be nice to have.
My budget is tight. I have a lot of other bits and pieces to sort. Including one of my batteries.
My boats a 35 ft. fin 10000 lbs. and white. 30yr old though.
Experience with wheel pilots would be interesting.
 
We have an old Raymarine AutoHelm 800 on 23 ft boat - hardly ever used until very recently when it was flat calm and it was dead boring to hold the tiller - it steered us back in faultlessly at 1-2 kts with 4knts of intermittent wind for 3 hours while we admired the view and ate supper. It didn't work so well with bigger seas: around 2-3 meters trying to hold a pinched course so resorted to feathering the tiller manually, great fun. The only other time we used it was in 1m seas on a F3-4 broad reach when me and the missus fancied dipping our toes romantically over the bow, a truly lovely moment with the sunset behind us. Having discovered the joys of switching to auto for a while in appropriate conditions I wouldn't be without one.
 
Daydream believer said:
I have absolutely no experience of use in the med so made no comment.


But - as i said- i have no experience of the med
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Exactly - which is why I emphasised the qualifying remark. The amount of time spent in strong or constant winds in the Med for normal summer cruising is very small and the proportion of time motorsailing is high if you do want to make long passages. This also means that electric consumption of an autopilot is not a problem. Add to that, most berthing is stern to so a vane gear is very vulnerable - and indeed most boats have open transoms and walkthroughs which make installation difficult. So, the benefits of vane gear are just not there.

On the other hand in Northern waters or ocean sailing where enclosed cockpits and aft decks are more common, and it is more usual to be able to make longer passages under sail, the advantages become more compelling. However, for coastal sailing around UK waters and autopilot still has the edge, with its ability to hold a course under motor, steering to the wind, a compass course or a waypoint (to choice) and holding the boat steady when setting and dropping sail. So not surprising few people will invest considerable sums on a vane gear that has limited use in their normal sailing and prefer to spend £500 or so on a simple device that just works with no fiddling and vastly more useful.

Really is horses for courses, and of course if you change the requirements and want something for long distance off shore sailing in a smallish boat, the windvane comes back strongly into the frame. For some the combination of windvane, particularly the auxilliary rudder type such as a Hydrovane, and a linked tillerpilot gives you the best of both worlds - at a price.
 
On reading this topic on tiller pilots and the expensive cost off. I found the Raymarine ST2000 for sale on Amazon in the USA at a cost of $495 plus $14 dollar postage which is muchos cheapos in comparison with the UK. Would there be import duty and what would that ammount be? Worthwhile buying if one was to be in the States on holiday or business.
 
Old Troll said:
On reading this topic on tiller pilots and the expensive cost off. I found the Raymarine ST2000 for sale on Amazon in the USA at a cost of $495 plus $14 dollar postage which is muchos cheapos in comparison with the UK. Would there be import duty and what would that ammount be? Worthwhile buying if one was to be in the States on holiday or business.
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Certainly be VAT to pay.
 
macd said:
BTW, you seem to have accepted that "The MED" and wind vanes don't mix. It's not their happiest hunting ground but, as I wrote in post #39, in my experience this is not so.
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I loved my Windpilot but did not enjoy using it much throughout much of the Mediterranean. Within about five miles of the coast the wind was generally so variable in strength and direction that the device was unable to steer a steady course. On longer passages, such as across from Italy to Greece, it was fine but the number of crossings like this that we made could be counted on one hand. Coupled with the number of longer passages we made under engine only and the problems we had when berthing stern-to with it, reluctantly we sold it
 
Vyv, Tranona: I hear what you're saying and you're substantially correct. Having said that, and as I pasted before, all the long passages I've made in the Med in two visits have been mainly using wind vane steering. As you'll both have guessed, that required a degree of time and patience to await helpful forecasts.

I'm searching for a way of encapsulating this might be useful to anyone anticipating cruising to the Med for the first time...what I would say is that if you don't already have a wind vane and plan only to cruise in the Med, to buy one would perhaps be a mistake. Spend the money instead on solar panels and sound electronic steering. But if you already have a wind vane, or plan on, say, an Atlantic crossing later, then you'll find good use for it.
 
macd said:
But if you already have a wind vane, or plan on, say, an Atlantic crossing later, then you'll find good use for it.
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That is the nub of it really. If you were speccing a boat for Med cruising, it would be low on the list of priorities, but if it were fitted to the boat already you would find some use for it, but like Vyv might ditch it if you spent most of your time backed up to a quay or even at anchor swimming off the transom regularly.

Much the same with coastal sailors as the OP was asking. Will a tillerpilot enhance his sailing? Undoubtedly a high priority particularly if you sail short or single handed (my insurance company even insists on it). But of course Daydreamer is also right. Using a windvane can be very rewarding if the challenge is passage under sail, or if your boat lacks a good engine. However on cost benefit and convenience criteria there is no contest. Probably the scarcity of windvanes on coastal cruisers in general tells the story.
 
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