Wind vane steering gear - best type?

Poignard

Poignard

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For once I find myself with a couple of grand to spare, and I thought I might treat myself to a wind vane steering sytem. What is the best type?

The boat is a 28-foot long keeler, small rudder mounted on the raked transom, sloop rigged, plenty of deck area aft of the cockpit for bolting down.
 
Hydrovane without a doubt.

It provides emergency rudder, copes well with all winds, accepts a small Autohlem electric pilot (for those few days when there is no wind) and is thoroughly reliable.

You might however have difficulty getting one within your budget.
 
Not sure of the implicatons of 28' but on our 40 ft Dufour the Hydrovane is supreme. Its simpy fantastic. The Raymarine 6001 died after 1500 miles (from new) and cost us 1400 euro and resulted in it still bein faulty so we use the Hydrovane all of the time. Winds from 5 knots to 55 knots, swell fom 0 to 5m it matters not. Good luck in choosing and fitting one.
 
There are a few Twisters around Portsmouth area with 'vane gears, a couple have Monitors and one has (I think) a Hasler. If you can manage to trace them, they'll be able to offer first hand info. FWIW, I have a Monitor and it's excellent.
 
On our second Hydrovane, one on a 44ftr., this one on a 33ftr., as said they,r terrific.
May be a bit heavy for a Twister, what about a trim tab system on the main transom hung rudder?
 
A Hydrovane is too heavy for a Twister and more than your budget unless you find one second hand. It CAN be mounted off-centre though to accomodate a transom-hung rudder, which can be a problem for some types.

Have a look HERE for links to all the manufacturers' sites plus a few articles and a windvane forum.
 
I only have experienced one type. Hydrovane. On our 33 Moody we have done a fair few miles and love it. Twice across the Atlantic and a bit more besides. Does what it says on the tin. Will never go without it, just my view.
Hope this helps.
 
Hey ken,
A secondhand Hasler would attach just fine to a Twisters aft deck-you would need the medium size.

A Hydrovane could be mounted offcentre-I did this on my last boat which was 28feet with a walk through transom-never managed to affect the vanes performance on the 'wrong' tack-and I mounted it angling in to the centreline and not vertical.
I would not bother with adding a trimtab to your rudder-you loose some of the effective rudder area(in a sense),its tricky to do, it becomes horribly vulnerable and difficult to access for foul ups imo)though others may differ..
The windpilot website has lots of pics accommodating their vanes on a variety of sterns..I have no experience of them other than that a mate of mine wa agent for a while and fitted quite a few to ARC entrants with failed autopilots in Gran Canaria some years back-all performed excellently and are very discrete.
Choices choices...What you going to do with all this newfound spare time at sea?
 
I good friend who has done lots of blue water single handed sailing recently left for another circumnav with a Neptune (windvane.co.uk) and after testing it he was absolutely raving about it. I think he's owned a few others in the past and rated this one the best. It certainly appeared to be an elegant design mechanically and astheticaly, very well executed. This will be my choice when I head off!
 
Go for a monitor, all the sytems have subtle nuances but these along with Aries are probably the best. Hydrovanes I dont believe are strong enough, seen too many bent ones.
 
Interesting Ian, I wonder if that was why Derek upped the shaft diam? My first one, 1996, was the biggest he had built til then, 14ft from the bottom of the rudder to the top of the vane, we never had any trouble in 6yrs, 20t 44ft boat, we never hand steered at sea and had no autopilot. Bill
 
I can't offer anything further I'm afraid Bill, that information is lifted from Ronald Preedy's book 'Sail & Deliver'. The boat was en-route back to UK from (I think) Vilamoura. Either way, that was the only damage they sustained in conditions which were absolutely horrendous.
 
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