Aries Windane

[charliehows]

Originally Posted by roverhi

6 turns lock to lock would drive me crazy, like driving a bus with such numb steering. Oh well, to each his own. YOu should have used your vane more before switching over. Our Westsail 32, which had a large unbalanced rudder, was a bit of a handful to steer on a reach but way better with a tiller than any wheel I've ever used. But then we never steered the boat under sail, Nick did the work. Our Aries steered the boat if it was under sail, period. As soon as the sails went up we hooked in the vane o steer. Worked great short tacking. 15 clicks on the control line and the vane would bring the boat about. All I had to do was trim the sails.

Pendulum Servo vanes don't work well with hydraulic steering. There is a bit of leakage in hydraulics so the reference point is constantly changing. You'd have to constantly declutch and reclutch the wheel adapter to keep with the moving reference point. Might be okay for local cruising when you are on deck most of the time but a pain on a long passage. With that many turns in the wheel, the vane will probably not have the ability to pull enough 'string' to effectively steer the boat, in any case. You can decrease the mechanical advantage/increase the amount of input from the vane using blocks in the vane to wheel linkage. Check out the SailoMat site for their installation manual, it details how to set it up. SAILOMAT

The best setup would be to connect the vane to a stub tiller and plum a bypass into your hydraulic steering system. That way the vane will work directly on the rudder without the interference of the wheel steering. The bypass valve in the hydraulics drops it completely out of the system so the vane doesn't have to fight the resistance of the hydraulic ram. You'd have the best of both worlds.

absolutely endorse the above - i spent six months trying to build a pendulum that would work on a hydraulic wheel steer - cant be done but a bypass valve on the hydraulic steering line and pendulum connected to tiller will work.

[hpeer]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Do you have any pics or plans for your tiller pilot adaptor hpeer? I've just ordered a tiller pilot and would like to build a similar adapter. Would love to see what you've done.

Not quite finished yet but I'll take some photos and post in a week or two.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Not quite finished yet but I'll take some photos and post in a week or two.

Many thanks

[hpeer]

Windvane blade is 30" long x 8" wide, slightly wider at top than bottom.

[hpeer]

Home built tiller pilot attachment.

I got a 6" extension for the 200+ from Raymarine and welded some 3/16" aluminum plates onto the end. I also made an attachment for the Aries in place of the wind blade.

Have not had it out yet but at dock it seems to work a charm.

Had to do some relatively minor surgery to assure pilot had full motion.

I may have to make a couple of uploads, we will see.

[hpeer]

This may be better.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by hpeer

This may be better.

Thanks hpeer. Much appreciate it. I've got an older Aries, but I can see how to adapt your plans to mine.

[lateral]

Originally Posted by hpeer

This may be better.

Did that allow the tillerpilot to steer heavy weather without over taxing it & did you have to increase the damping on the TP?

[hpeer]

I have just installed it so no practical experience with it yet.

But hard to see how this won't work.

All bits line up and I have full throw on the TP.

Then again, I imagine that if I am in heavy weather I'll be under sail power or hove to, not motoring.