Hydraulic Steering for Cats

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by blubaju

Had both, 10 years hydraulic, now 12 dyneema pull-pull, autopilot motor jefa pancake. I'd never go back. The jefa, all metal planetary gear inside, has a build-in clutch. AP off and you have "full feel". Dyneema easy and quick repair, but never needed. Hydraulic fine for the mechanical parts but the copper tubes developed pin holes after 10 years. No "tie rod" each rudder is directly controlled from helm. Break one, the other is still fine. Other point is weight, we made the quadrants in carbon and dyneema 6mm floats anyway. GOal: use the lightest possible equipment as on a live-on cruising boat you carry far to much stuff anyway. In other words, I go for dyneema, her Admiralty invests in a pressure cooker ;-)

This steering is the best you can do, for sure. Also an extremely difficult install. If you have the time to figure out all the routing and where to put all the pulleys, you can’t get better than this method.

I went hydraulic after looking at this method as the alternative. Just didn’t have enough time to do it this way.

[Moontide]

Couple of people I know who had hydraulic steering on cats (without a tie bar) told me a constant problem was the rudders getting out of sync. They would have to realign them often (like under 10 hours underway). They finally gave u and converted to traditional cable / quadrant steering.