From: Brian Hathaway
Sent: 15 November 2023
To: Sarah Curry

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Transcribed from voice memo – may contain inaccuracies]

“Hey there, I hope you don’t mind me using the voice thing.

I’m actually fixing my autopilot as I’m just leaving Jakarta to head to Batam.

The nice thing about [a tiller pilot directly on the Hydrovane] as opposed to having spare autopilot parts is it’s a built autopilot. So, if your autopilot breaks, you’re not taking up a day of trying to reinstall things. You just drop this thing in and to make it run would probably take me about 45 seconds. And I will be back to having the autopilot run the boat so it’s a really nifty fix.

I used it from Yap to Palau after my autopilot broke, for 250 nautical miles. It was low wind the whole way (like no wind) so I motor sailed. I used the windvane as my main rudder, and the tiller pilot on that and it worked great.

The only caveat is since it’s a little bit smaller than the main rudder and the Ram of the ST2000, or 1000 only pushes out about ~six inches. It does take a little bit longer if there’s any swell to get back to where it’s supposed to be. It works fine; it gets there. You just have to be patient with it. But like I said: in 250 miles, I didn’t touch it one time. I set it one time heading straight down there and it was perfect for 2 days. It was great.”