Hi there, Can't tell you how they would work on any cat, but I can tell you about mine. I owned and lived on a 27' HT for over two years in the
Gulf Of Mexico the 1980's. I bought the
boat from a sailor who bought it in the UK and sailed it back to the Gulf. He told me at the time the
Aries worked great on all points of sail. Of course the HT could only point about 40 to 45 degrees to the wind so there was never anything on the
boat blocking wind from the vane.
In my case I used the Aries often when I was
single handing in the Gulf. The boat is not fast so did not have to worry about it accelerating into a wave downwind as some have suggested. It worked well on all points that I could sail. I know they make lighter versions now which might be better as the Aries was a big, heavy well built unit. The only problem I ever had was breaking vanes which were made out of
wood.
When sailing by my self I would tow a 100' line with knots tied in it and was tied onto the
gear release on the Aires. If I did fall over, I would/I think I would have time to swim to the line, pull on it and disengage the wind vane bringing the boat around into the wind. Thankfully, I never had to do that. I remember sailing downwind in some 20-30 kts wind with the Aries
steering.
If I was to get another boat I would definitely have a some sort of
hydrovane steering system backup for when the modern auto
helm
decides to stop working and they all do eventually.
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