Installed a Windpilot Pacific on our
Pacific Seacraft 37 and am most pleased with the entire experience.
First, I also had some questions about sizing. Got directly in touch with Peter Foertmann (peter@windpilot.com) who's both the brain and brawn behind the product. He's extremely responsive and I took his advice -- based on installing hundreds of these units on all manner of boats -- with complete confidence.
Second, the unit is quite straight forward to install. Everything is well thought out to minimize through-hull penetrations and maximize adjustability (both for different transom designs and to cope with any variations in hole placement). Once installed, the unit is surprisingly compact, much smaller physically and visually than, say, a
Monitor.
Third, operation is pretty simple. It's helpful to build yourself a continuous loop of line to turn the main horizontal control knob. Then you just balance up the
sails (like any
windvane, too much
weather helm will overpower it), crank the loop until the unit is facing into the wind, and lock it down. You then use the same control loop to tweak the boat's orientation -- more upwind, downwind, whatever. I sail mostly single-handed and use it on all but the shortest tacks.
Fourth, performance is terrific. It loves high winds, on any point of sail. And it does very well in light conditions, too, including broad reaching under geneker and running dead downwind with
genoa poled-out wing-and-wing.
Best of luck.
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