Catana 431 Hydraulic steering problems

[Jcody2121]

I am looking at a Catana 431 as a possible boat to purchase and I have heard some originally had the hydraulic steering. I wanted to get some feed back from actual Catana owners who may be able to speak to the pros and cons of this?

[PippaB]

I can't speak to the Catana, but we sail an older, dual-helm Outremer with hydraulic steering, so I have to suspect they are similar. We've had the boat for about 5 years and done an awful lot of sailing.

Our system has bypass valves so that only one helm turns and so that when AP is engaged the helms don't turn. With that type of setup you get no helm feel. As a result we find having a rudder angle indicator a necessity, without it there is no way to tell where the rudder is (other than "is the boat turning?"). There are ways to get around this with hydraulic systems, but the dual-helm setup frequently leads to this configuration (but I have no direct knowledge of the Catana).

We've had no trouble with our system. I've had to replace a couple of hoses because they had steel end fittings that got very rusty. Ours was well set up for bleeding, that is important if you have to work on the system. We have not had any leaks (knock on wood), or any failures, or other problems. It works, it's light on the hand, a little bit too many turn lock-to-lock, that is function of the pump size attached to the wheel, but overall fine.

FWIW, that's one experience.