From: Peter Harvey
Sent: January 29, 2016
To: Will Curry; Sarah Curry
Subject: Re: Installation Bowman 48 Chanto

Hi Will and Sarah,

Just to let you know that we got to grips with the hydrovane, which worked brilliantly when our electrical autopilot failed on the ARC. We even got you some free publicity in PBO!

We very slightly altered the rudder alignment in Las Palmas after our discussion, as we decided it may have been very fractionally off centre and perhaps that made the difference. The only other change was a new cover.

We had a poled out double headsail downwind rig and the hydrovane coped with the swell even in relatively low apparent wind (eg even when we were only doing 6 knots downwind in 13 knots of true wind speed), as well as in 25-30 knots and heavier swell. We generally used it with the vane in upright position (otherwise on certain wind directions it could knock against a gps sensor at extreme deflection) and on the left hand setting. Perhaps we might benefit from your new extendable stubby, but there didn’t seem to be a problem in the upright position.

We learnt when setting it to look at the hydrovane and if it was more frequently nodding one way , adjusted the wheel to make it more even, nodding both ways equally. Once set it would then just run for hours on end with occasional course adjustments when the wind shifted to keep us on the great circle route!

We did have a problem with fields of sargasso weed though! It didn’t like weed and could go off by 40 degrees, but sailing backwards freed it and also loads of weed from the keel, which had been slowing us down.

Many thanks for your help.

Peter Harvey