Aries windvane & Autopilot

[ancor]

A friend of mine has an older Aries windvane and is looking to attach a tiller type pilot to it. I'm pretty sure these windvanes are a 'pendulum' vane, in case that vital information to this. Does anyone here have any information on this and maybe even a "how-to" document or link?

Any help is very much appreciated.

[roverhi]

Hook the tiller pilot to the weight at the bottom of the wind sensing vane. Probably have to make a 'L' bracket out of stainless to do that. Figure out a way to attach the non moving end to the pushpit. Could fasten a block of wood to the rail with u-bolts and drill a hole for the pin to go in. Nick wasn't big on using the vane with a tiller pilot under engine power.

Depending on how affected the pendulum servo is by prop wash it may not work under power. Didn't work on my Westsail 32 because the propellor was too close to the servo. The disturbed water from the prop wouldn't allow the servo to work properly, it kept slamming from side to side. Suggest trying to hand steer by moving the vane and see if it works.

[ancor]

Thanks Peter for the great info. Will pass it on.

[model 10]

We have used a tiller pilot on our Aries for a couple of years. I've burned up 2 drive motors so far, but they steer the boat pretty well if you get everything dialed in. One way the drive motors can burn up is when you loose control of the boat and it continues to try and steer anyway.

[gradyho]

Who do I contact about purchasing the "Hinge" for my Aries ? I sent an email to the Aries website but received no answer. Can anyone out there help me?
Grady

[DougR]

If you go to the web site for Pelagic Autopilots (recently purchased by Scanmar Marine), you will see they have an interesting and evidently heavy duty “tillerpilot” and they also provide info on connecting it to the Scanmar servo pendulum steering vane.

Might be some ideas for you there....

[model 10]

Originally Posted by gradyho

Who do I contact about purchasing the "Hinge" for my Aries ? I sent an email to the Aries website but received no answer. Can anyone out there help me?
Grady

You won't get any joy from the web site. If you mean the hinge for the rudder shaft that an older model has, you will need to find a used one. I can't think of another "hinge" in an aries?
I attached our tiller pilot to the wind vane side. At first, it attached right to the plywood vane, it actually broke it. Now I have a piece of fiberglass that I use instead. It has enough flex to eliminate that problem. Still, stuff happens every once and a while and a tiller pilot isn't made to do this. It's designed to push and pull a tiller not operate a windvane. There is no way a tillerpilot can keep up with the wind and the way the sea pushes a boat around. It has to work way to hard sometimes and it only takes one time and it's toast.