From: Sallie Beauchamp
Sent: July 26, 2018
To: Gloria Anderson
Subject: my vane

Hello all,Attaching some install pics. Feel free to use along with this story.

Good news is we are in Burnt Store Marina, off the hard and in water for shake down sails and small projects. Sallie has named the HydroVane “Thing” as in “Adams Family TV show.

Coming south in Charlotte Harbor from boat yard to marina we were hit with massive thunder storm for over an hour with 40 mph steady winds….gusts much higher…horizontal rain and zero visibility. Surrounded by shoals and being blown backwards towards big mean concrete bridge even with engine wide open. If nose got turned I had to fall off to get enough boat speed to get rudder authority to try to get back into the wind.

Rapidly running out of room for this I luckily thought of my new Hydrovane, put it in manual mode, and used it along with the wheel. The boat immediately responded and quickly turned against the storm.

Even under these conditions I noted the load on the HydroVane rudder was extremely light. Finally got to a place where I could anchor as an escape technique and road out storm. Our new Mantus Anchor stopped the boat immediately in high winds.

So my first use of the Hydrovane was to survive….Thank you “Thing”

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