Windvane Trial
Ile Jeudi
Bob and Lin Griffiths
Thu 7 Jun 2012 15:29
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7 June 2012
37:01.47N 08:08.59W
We found during several of the night passages last
year that the electric autopilot used up too much 'juice' from the
batteries. During the day this is not a problem as our Solar Panels
produce enough amps to drive the fridge, instruments, plotter and
autopilot. At night of course the solars do absolutely
nothing.
We decided to buy a 'Hydrovane' which is
a make of windvane steering that has it's own rudder, rather than
using the boat's rudder. This means that that we can turn the autopilot
off and also if we have a steering failure on the boat we should, hopefully have
backup steering. The insurance companies like this!
We had the Hydrovane shipped to Gibraltar
from the UK manufacturers last August which we collected during our passage west
through the Mediterranean. It was fitted at La Linea Marina in Spain (right
by Gibraltar) by Ted Devey. He is a recommended installer who
works freelance and happened to be in the Gibraltar area. The fitting took
about 4 days but seems to have been done well.
When we sailed on to Portugal via Rota last
September we did not use the Hydrovane as we didn't want to have to experiment
at night in the dark.
So our first outing with it was on a trip from
Albufeira from Portimao on 3 June this year and it was an encouraging
start. We tried again when we sailed from Albufeira to Isla Culatra
today. The wind was about 15-18knots on the beam and as our speed started
to go over 7 knots the vane had difficulty coping. Changing the 'gear
setting' on the rudder brought things back under control.
Here is a picture of this second
test:-
 For any sailing techies out there - the
Hydrovane website suggests we put a tell tale on the vane to help adjusting the
vane so it is exactly in line with the wind direction:-
 This helped enormously.
Most sailors give nicknames to major items on
yachts so at the moment our Hydrovane is called Carly (you're so
vane)blog |