Windvane Steering? Autopilot or Both for Offshore Cruising

[annk]

We left Europe 10 years ago fitted the boat with a Monitor windvane and 2 autopilots, one hydraulic and the other electric.

Hit by lightning in the middle of the Atlantic we lost BOTH autopilots. The Monitor broke it's sacrificial tube in the same storm . We were unable to fix the autopilots. We had the Monitor up and running again in an hour.

The thought of the two of us hand steering for the next 1,800 miles is horrific.

In St Maarten we replaced both autopilots, at vast cost!

We learned to trim the sails(cutter rig) so that the Monitor can cope with pretty much any weather conditions. We have had it working in winds from less than 3 knots to over 70 knots(that wasn't nice). It coped very well BUT you need to know your boat well and what sail configuration works with the windvane. We find that the Monitor likes the boat to pull from the front and by understanding that we can configure our sail plan for optimum performance.

Fast forward 6 years and we were hit by lightning again(!), folks don't anchor near us now. Once again BOTH autopilots bit the dust. This time we did not replace them and for the past 4 years have sailed solely with the Monitor, just the two of us, ocean and coastal.

Our newest purchase is a tillerpilot for the,for us, rare times when we need to motor in no wind. Something that we avoid doing at all cost. We can usually manage to keep moving in our chosen direction in under 5 knots of wind so those motoring events are pretty rare.

A lot depends on how you sail, do you slam on the engine and want to go in a straight line a lot of the time? That's not often an option in ocean sailing particularly if, like us, you try and conserve as much fuel as possible.

Ideological arguments aside our experience with lightning strikes proves that there is no such thing as back up electrical systems in some situations!

I would not cross and ocean, or sail in a remote location, without the windvane.

[lateral]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

That about sums it up.

If you're not swimming in money, get an autopilot first. We have an X5 and it's worked out fine for us. The autopilot will work in wind and no-wind, and you can't say the same for the wind vane. Not in any way knocking the vane, but if it's the difference between sailing this year or next, just grab an X5 on sale somewhere and bail.

This is the first disagreement I can remember with what you expound RH.
I can get a good wine vane second hand for 500--> $1500. (I have)
(I also have the tp32= toy pilot backup) I wouldn't buy a second hand electric autopilot & a new one equivalent to the wv will cost me 3.5k+$ So they must be only for the well heeled folk!

[SimonV]

I use both but mainly wind when on passage. I also have a Raymarine tiller pilot that is connected to the wind vane when winds are light and abaft the beam (abaft what a lovely word) If ever I stop ocean sailing I may give up on the wind vane but until then wind rules. And the under deck pilots do make an annoying noise, not so much being loud but annoying in its random actuation.
Oh and aside from the wind vanes being more fool prof, they also allow less sail adjustments on long trade wind passages as long as you dont mind 5 to 10 degrees of course change during the night but this evens itself out as the sun comes up.

[sailorboy1]

Seems this thread parallels others in that:

Whether you have wind vane or an autopilot..........it wouldn't fix stupid.

You are either the paranoid or the just normally prepared sailor in your "events" planning.

I have to wonder, which one is best for whale collisions?

[colemj]

Originally Posted by SimonV

Oh and aside from the wind vanes being more fool prof, they also allow less sail adjustments on long trade wind passages as long as you dont mind 5 to 10 degrees of course change during the night but this evens itself out as the sun comes up.

AP's allow that also - just press the "Wind" mode button. In fact, Jimmy Cornell recommends using this mode at night.

Lightning strikes, or other electrical system issues, are valid concerns and should be taken into account with risk assessment, system design and mitigation strategies - just like those for hitting whales and other non-routine bad stuff.

For electrical problem planning, you also will be assessing navigation systems, charging abilities, communications and basic living needs like water, refrigeration and light. The AP may be the least of your worries. We too were hit by lightning and lost our AP. We also lost every single electronic item on the boat except our refrigeration (go figure) and the SSB (which is on its own dedicated electrical system). This included half our battery bank, two battery chargers, an alternator, the windlass, all navigation equipment, the inverter, the solar regulator (but not the panels), and basically everything else you can think of. We were lucky enough to be spared a complete battery bank meltdown, the solar panels themselves (charging could be done by connecting/disconnecting them directly to the remaining batteries), the refrigeration, the SSB and the watermaker, so food, water, communications were not problems and electricity could be easily managed. Navigation was picked up by a computer with a hockey puck gps. And we were only 100nm away from facilities, so none of this was as critical as being 2000nm from landfall.

To summarize my long point about this: if one gets a windvane solely because of the chance of lightning, then one must equally prepare for a complete loss of electricity and electrical generation ability, navigation capacity and possibly much of the water, food and food preparation ability. Again, your AP going down in a strike may be the least of your problems.

Ripping off mounts and other things like that are installation issues and no different than those encountered with windvanes. People severely underestimate the forces applied by an AP drive. They could equally underestimate those for windvanes also, except that windvanes LOOK like they have the possibility of tearing off the transom, so they are mounted with the respect and attention they require. AP drives just look like small cylinders and are often simply screwed onto existing weak structures or a insufficient mount is made for them.

Mark

[Paul L]

Mark,
Given your brushes with lightening, what's your offshore plan for loosing your primary AP from a lightening strike while multi-days from a port?

[AiniA]

We have a Monitor and a below decks Raymarine and overwhelmingly rely on the Monitor. It takes some practice to get the most out of it, but is worth it to avoid the mechanical noise and power use. We rarely have to use our genset which is nice.

If you can afford both, great. If only one, a vane for long passages.

BTW, in South Africa at least half of the foreign cruisers, who are all rtw, have vane steering. Monitors are most common followed by Hyrdovane.

[brianb00]

I am building a electric drive for a monitor wind vane. The function is the same as what one achieves by using a tiller pilot on the vane. I will attach an actuator to the counter weight on the air blade, likely with a small dyneema line or a push rod. Question for the wind vane users: Could you roughly estimate the pressure/load that the counter weight sees under typical conditions, say up to 30 kts of wind ? I am wondering how much torque or pressure I need to generate from my drive motor. I plan to mount the drive on the stainless frame elements on the monitor just below the counter weight.
Thanks,
Brian

[zeehag]

i agree for a change with rebel heart---here in pacific one has either too much wind or not enough--there is never just right amount ....
ray marine wheel mounted stuff is junk. wont work in seas, wont work in storms, so , what is the use???????
i sailed way too many legs of cruises with wheel mounted rm--and did so much more hand steering than when we were learning to sail the hudson river in youth with a tiller tied to the coamings for tracking ....

[robert sailor]

One thing to keep in mind is that adding a tiller pilot to a vane works very well in the light stuff but I think you'll find most of the vane manufacterers don't support motoring while the vane is in the water due to prop turbulence. I know lots of folks do this anyways.

[svmariane]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Anyone else count, too, and tell us where you are.

American Samoa, anchored out with others for the hurricane season.

Having chatted with the others and sticking my head out the hatch, I count:

Cats= 2, Both w/AutoPilot

Mono= 13, of those we've 7 w/WindVane, 3 w/AP, 3 manual steer (or sheet/tiller/jib bungee-cord steer)

Less than 10 yrs old = 3 Mono w/WindVane and 1 Cat.

Windvane types = 5 Monitor, 2 unknown. Well, unknown to me, anyway

Monos are sized from two in the 27-30 ft (ish) range (both single handed) with most others in the 38 to 48 ft range. One 85 ft ketch with like 3 AP systems, dual gensets, twin freezers, twin fridges, and, and, and.

By the way...The manual/sheet steered boats are ALL single handed, with 2 having younger lads of late 20s to mid 30s, and one being an old salt of approx 70, rather than couples/family boats (one AP mono is single handed). Just noted that & it's now got me wondering... Is it a money thing (because, yes, the four single-handers are the ones looking for work ashore, or willing to hull-clean for a few bucks) or is it real-world simplicity? For when there is no wife/partner to grab the helm whilst hubby crawls around doing repairs?

Also here, but IMO not really relevant to the counting, are 3 monos that are med-moored to the docks with elderly gents as live-aboards who make no bones about having "dropped anchor" forever. They seem pretty well stripped down. The boats, not the old geezers!

[roverhi]

Most people take off the wind paddle when they attach an autopilot to the windvane. No more force required than what it takes to lift the lead weight at full throw. If you are going to leave the wind paddle on, it will take a lot of force to counteract it in a strong wind. No reason to be fighting that.

Originally Posted by brianb00

I am building a electric drive for a monitor wind vane. The function is the same as what one achieves by using a tiller pilot on the vane. I will attach an actuator to the counter weight on the air blade, likely with a small dyneema line or a push rod. Question for the wind vane users: Could you roughly estimate the pressure/load that the counter weight sees under typical conditions, say up to 30 kts of wind ? I am wondering how much torque or pressure I need to generate from my drive motor. I plan to mount the drive on the stainless frame elements on the monitor just below the counter weight.
Thanks,
Brian

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by svmariane

American Samoa, anchored out with others for the hurricane season.

Having chatted with the others and sticking my head out the hatch, I count:

What bizarre results!
I need you to up anchor and go to the other Samoa and check there and report back

I wonder.... Wonder if its got to do with Samoa being more off the cruisers "normal" coconut run?
Tonga isn't far away and I really don't think there was many there at all.

By the way, American Samoa gets dusted up by cyclones... Are you safe there? Wasnt there one there just recently? As in this season?

[PamlicoTraveler]

We use a Monitor Windvane and have rigged a Raymarine ST1000 "tiller pilot" to steer via the Windvane when there is no wind. It's the best of both worlds. If you can steer relative to wind as you do with an autopilot, it is much better.

I think the Monitor Windvane was the smartest purchase I ever made. It is more important to me than a Watermaker or generator.

[IMG]

http://www.google.com/search?q=monitor+windvane+st1000&hl=en&tbo=d&sourc e=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=ONboULjcE4uK0QGZuoEg&sqi=2 &ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=768&bih=928#biv=i%7C0;d%7CF51 wKMYVBdGlcM:[/IMG]

[brianb00]

Thanks for the feedback. To the "paddle" is so well balanced that the force to turn it is very slight, without the wind paddle attached ? It must be very well balanced indeed, along its chord.

Regards,
Brian

Originally Posted by roverhi

Most people take off the wind paddle when they attach an autopilot to the windvane. No more force required than what it takes to lift the lead weight at full throw. If you are going to leave the wind paddle on, it will take a lot of force to counteract it in a strong wind. No reason to be fighting that.