Self Steering Off Shore

[Orion Jim]

I have a Monitor wind vane and reccommend it highly. Singlehanding to Bermuda and back last season I spent thirteen days at sea. I hand steered a couple hours total. I also have a Raymarine wheel pilot for those times when there is no wind. The Monitor has proven itself ultra reliable from five knots to the low fifties.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by elandra65

I have had a Hydrovane on 2 boats and it worked very well. Best to have both an AP and windvane if finances allow. The windvane struggles with spinnaker work due to light winds and apparent wind issues. It also does not have enough steering effort for a spinnaker.

(I am speaking below about the Hydrovane-style aux rudder, and the Monitor servo-pendulum self-steering systems, since I am familiar with these. I have a Monitor, and a friend has a Hydrovane or something similar.)

The aux rudder windvanes generally have less effective rudder area than your boat's regular rudder (which is what servo-pendulum units like the Monitor use). The aux rudder is also often not as deep as your main rudder. This gives the windvane less steering ability than a system that uses your main rudder.

Which doesn't mean that these aux rudder systems can't work very well, just that you generally have to pay more attention to trim and balance, and should conditions push you way out of balance the aux rudder system may not be as able to bring you back on course. A spinnaker is a sail that can get out of control pretty easily, and a servo-pendulum may be a better choice if you plan to use a spinnaker.

That said, there are certainly advantages to the aux rudder system. The servo system needs some speed through the water to develop the helm-steering force, so in very light air you tend to lose control. The aux rudder designs usually rely solely on the force of the wind to drive the aux rudder. The servo units are more complicated to rig than the aux rudder designs (these are more self-contained).

[SV Simple Life]

CPT Autopilot, best-kept secret.

It's a wheel-pilot, but more than powerful enough. I used mine on our 45-ton wooden powerboat for last years trip from BC to Mexico, without fault, and it now drives our Tayana 37....so it's versatile, and simple to install!

Mine was bought second-hand, and refurbished by CPT. They cost about $1800 brand new. Can't speak highly enough!

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

To which acronyms are you referring? I scanned this thread and saw "AP", which stands for "Auto Pilot". Were there others?

On some of the other threads we have gotten deep into wind, course, speed where we use AWS, AWA, TWS, TWA, TWD, STW, SOG, HDG, COG, and no doubt a few others. We use these because they are much easier to type and read, and in many cases we define them before we use them (at least I try to). The electrical threads have their own set of abbreviations and acronyms: A, Ah, W, Wh, V, VA, etc. Again, these acronyms are standard in the domain, and are used for convenience and comprehension.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I suggest that if an acronym hasn't been defined in-thread that you look it up. The ones I mentioned are quite common, and you will see them used again and again. Feel free to ask for clarification here. Some of us love to pontificate on these topics.

This.

The acronyms mentioned in Paul's post are as standard, among sailors, as "A.D." is standard for "anno domini". Why waste time and space writing out Apparent Wind Angle or Dead Downwind when practically everyone knows this term as AWA and DDW? It's even written like that on our instruments.

If you don't know something, don't be shy to ask. There is no shame whatsoever in it; this community, while it may have other faults, is very friendly and helpful towards those who are just starting to learn.

[lamadriver]

Self steering gear is a must IMO for any short handed ocean sailing.

I have a hydrovane I bought new new, its the best bit of kit I have ever purchased for the boat. Plus the customer service from the Curry's is awesome.


Pretty much once you figure out how it works , just set it and go. It has steered my boat in winds of 40-50+ for days at a time. . I can go on with countless stories where the safety of the boat would have been compromised with out self steering gear. There is no way to helm in 50 knots and 7 meter seas and not a chance an autopilot could keep up

After about 15000 miles I replaced the drive sleeve, the lower bearing and the vane cover.

You really need both, for motoring and light winds the electronic autopilot is a must.

LD

[michaelratinter]

Blind Faith has hydraulic steering. The original owner installed a Cetek autopilot which works perfecctly. I added a Hydrovane which also works most of the time. I also added a D400 wind turbjne generator so I can use the Cetek autopilot without burning diesel.

On a two-week cruise south from San Francisco Bay area (USA) we were on a stbd beam reach using the Hydrovsne when we started getting big northerly gusts. The gusts were frequent enough that the Hydrovane became confused. We switched to the Cetek/Wagner autopilot and all was well.

The Cetek hydraulic autopilot works well always but it is noisy. In the aft cabin it sounded like a male chorus singing random Gregorian chants.

[Neptune's Gear]

Its interesting, and, IMO wrong, that the manufacturers of AP's tend to specify the model required by weight of the vessel. What really matters is helm loading, and hard over times at load. A well specified under deck AP is a joy to have, and can do many 10s of thousands of miles trouble free. BUT if your boat is hard for YOU to steer, no AP, or wind vane, will do well. 1st make sure the boat is well balanced, and your ahead of the game, and, if electric, the draw will be low, and the wear and tear minimized.

[nhschneider]

We met a couple on a 48’ Wauquiez whose insurance company required them to have two below-decks autopilots, both being in a hot standby mode.

Despite the fact that we’ve been close friends of the Curry family (they own the Hydrovane company)for many years and we’ve almost completed our circumnavigation, we chose to sail without a wind vane. In Jimmy Cornell’s latest book, 200,000 Miles, he writes that he chose not to equip his last boat with a wind vane, instead relying on his electric autopilot.

Fair winds and calm seas

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by coastalexplorer

It is certain to me that someone is going to call this posting I make to-day Off topic...BUT! I write to make a philosophical point that on certain subjects; especially electricity and for those of us who have never really pushed it out there enough to need self steering...Please further include Newbies on other subjects...we come here to learn.

(taking note in this case that it seems several self steering systems use electricity)

So could at least some or all of these experts consider avoiding the use of Acronyms? or at least explain them at the point that you first introduce them into your text?

There was a grammatical fashion back in the 1700.s to include French words interjected into the English language to impress ones intellectual peers: just to show how educated and smart you were.

So is this obsession with using Acronyms motivation similar? or just too lazy to type it out? or just trying to be contemporary Hip in keeping with the assumption that no body likes to read long text anymore? Or just an assumption that everyone knows what you are talking about? and has lots of spare time to spend on Google trying to look it up?

Well in the post previous to yours:
“$” is short for dollars currency, usually US (United States of America) but occasionally Australian (usually abbreviated AU or AUS) or Canadian (usually abbreviated CAN).
“NC” is short for North Carolina which is a state/province/department of the US (see above).
“St” is short for saint.

Hope this helps.

[Mr B]

I have an ST4000 on my 34 Sailing foot Cat, It came with the boat,
I had 380 Watts of solar panels, and a 911 wind generator to drive it 24/7,
Plus every thing else on board, Lights, Etc,
I never ran out of power,

The only time I had problems with it, Was with side drift, 3 times, The Self steering dropped out as it was confused,

7 knots forward and 5 knots sideways in an Ocean current, The GPS went round in circles and the Auto Pilot dropped out,

It did run for 21 days straight, 24/7 in all the conditions that I encountered,
Pacific Ocean, Coral Sea, and the Tasman Sea,

The only time I hand steer is to pick up a mooring ball, Fuel dock, Or up a river or creek,

[roverhi]

Some of the auxillary rudder self steerers are driven by wind (HydroVane). Others (WindPilot Pacific Plus, Fleming) use a Servo Pendulum to actuate the rudder. People claim the Hydrovane gets enough power to steer the boat from wind alone but that system looks to have limited power to turn the rudder. People claim they work but it just seems to defy physics.

The WPPP on my boat will steer the boat if there is any way on. In short, if the boat is moving, even almost imperceptibly, the servo pendulum supplys enough force to the vane to steer the boat. What it can't do is get enough force on the vane to provide steering input relative to the wind. There just isn't enough wind pressure to deflect the steering vane. Just screwing around, I was putting the steering directions into the vane to see if the vane had the ability to steer at these very slow speeds. The efficiency of the hybrid auxillary rudder systems may not translate for a straight pendulum servo steerer but if my W32 would sail, the vane would steer. One big advantage of the P/S system is the faster the boat moves, the more power there is to the steering input. The Monitor on my P35 wouldn't steer below 4 knots but worked like gang busters above that speed. That was despite the forces on the rudder being geomtrically larger.

The Aux Rudder System vanes have less area than the boats rudder but they are located further away from the CE (Center of Effort). That gives them more leverage and more power to steer the boat. On my boat the WPPP's rudder is actually more effective than the boats rudder since it's about 5' further aft and in less disturbed water.

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

(I am speaking below about the Hydrovane-style aux rudder, and the Monitor servo-pendulum self-steering systems, since I am familiar with these. I have a Monitor, and a friend has a Hydrovane or something similar.)

The aux rudder windvanes generally have less effective rudder area than your boat's regular rudder (which is what servo-pendulum units like the Monitor use). The aux rudder is also often not as deep as your main rudder. This gives the windvane less steering ability than a system that uses your main rudder.

Which doesn't mean that these aux rudder systems can't work very well, just that you generally have to pay more attention to trim and balance, and should conditions push you way out of balance the aux rudder system may not be as able to bring you back on course. A spinnaker is a sail that can get out of control pretty easily, and a servo-pendulum may be a better choice if you plan to use a spinnaker.

That said, there are certainly advantages to the aux rudder system. The servo system needs some speed through the water to develop the helm-steering force, so in very light air you tend to lose control. The aux rudder designs usually rely solely on the force of the wind to drive the aux rudder. The servo units are more complicated to rig than the aux rudder designs (these are more self-contained).

[Custom30]

Our boat is a custom 30' full keeler, barn door rudder, and tiller steering.

She is roughly 9 tons and 26'9" at the waterline.

She has circumnavigated, and after her Pacific crossing she was outfitted with a Fleming Minor servo-pendulum wind vane in Australia.

3 times too heavy for the stoutest tiller pilot, Autopilots were out of the question.

I built a mount and linkage to attach the Raymarine st1000 to the head of the Fleming where the paddle would attach.

The st1000 never has any strain, and uses almost no power, as the head always moves freely and the servo does all the heavy work. The bigger the conditions, the better the steering.

There is no doubt that this system is best when in a rough confused or cross-sea. As a wave hits the boat it also hits the pendulum, so the boat instantly (not reacting a second later after the boat yaws) steers up, and vice versa when the wave sucks out. This produces a dead straight track through a rough cross sea. No autopilot by itself can do that, period.

My rough weather test was 371 miles solo in conditions 30+ and confused seas in 61 1/2 hours. The pilot/vane steered every mile, and the track looks like it was drawn on the plotter.

The only issue I had was some seaweed that collected on the vane's rudder, but it only slowed the steering slightly, and the course was still true.

One tip, the cheap tiller pilots are poorly waterproofed, so rough weather sailing with this setup requires you to protect the pilot. I wrapped mine in cellophane, and that worked great!




.

[ZULU40]

Originally Posted by Custom30

No autopilot by itself can do that, period.

whenever someone speaks like this its time to step in

this is straight out engineering

a linear drive that can exceed the rudder force and do so in a timely manner will hold a course, examples are plentiful when seas and weather are slight. The problem is the retailers offer 'popular' hardware that is poorly designed, even more poorly built and too slow to react.

that can be changed, and in lesser known drives already has.
Industrially the speed of linear drives is miles in front of the simple screw jacks most offer for auto tillers. Speed = faster correction and less power consumed.

[Jim Cate]

Some of the auxillary rudder self steerers are driven by wind (HydroVane). Others (WindPilot Pacific Plus, Fleming) use a Servo Pendulum to actuate the rudder. People claim the Hydrovane gets enough power to steer the boat from wind alone but that system looks to have limited power to turn the rudder. People claim they work but it just seems to defy physics.

On our previous boat I designed and built an auxiliary rudder wind steerer. Rudder was driven by a trim tab which was driven by an inclined axis vane. Despite your fears, this system would steer well down to around 4-5 knots AWS (depending on sea state) and up to storm force as well.

Getting the balance between trim tab area and rudder balance area was a bit tricky, but in the end the thing drove the boat for around 50,000 miles over a 17 year period. We had an antique Autohelm 3000 belt driven wheel pilot as well, used in calms and motoring primarily.

So, while I agree that pendulum vanes do have great power and react faster to yaw, aux rudder systems are a viable alternative, one that is particularly attractive to center cockpit and wheel driven boats.

BTW, my design was similar in concept to the Autohelm vane, still manufactured and sold by Scanmar Marine... another option that is seldom mentioned here on CF.

Jim

[Snowpetrel]

Autopilot vs windvane, I think its really a question of style and personal preference these days. As either a windvane or a good belowdeck AP are pretty well proven to work in all conditions, and be reliable long term. An AP relies on a robust charging system, but solar is cheap and reliable.

I guess its easier to fix a windvane, or at least see whats wrong, but you probably can't weld up a broken alloy casting offshore anyway.

For me the choice always has been a windvane. I love the way the boat becomes a pure wind machine, totally reliant on wind, but using no electronics or computers to sail and steer itself across an ocean. Windvanes are mostly silent and don't take anything from the batteries simplifying life offshore, and reducing the potential failure modes.

But a Windvane can be much harder to install, and get working properly. Each boat is different and they can take a fair bit of tweaking to get good results from. Over time you get used to your windvane/boat combo and it becomes second nature to tweak it just right, so it will steer nicely anytime the boat is sailing. But those with big autopilots often give up on the vane because in tricky conditions because it is easier to push a button. And once the AP habit starts it's hard to stop. It can also be harder for new crew to learn a windvane unit's ways.

Windvane can also compromise swim platforms and davits, so thats another reason why they are less common these days. Windvanes won't always work with a small Tillerpilot when motoring as the propwash can play havoc with servo pendulums. So a bigger AP may be needed anyway.