From: Chris Burns
Sent: April-26-08 10:27 AM
To: Will Curry
Subject: Hydrovane Sails Pacific

Will, John and the Hydrovane Crew:

I wanted to let you know that the Hydrovane installed on Wind Dancer, a Catalina 36, has steered us every sailing mile from Alaska to where we are today — about halfway between the Marquesas Islands and the Tuamotus Archipelago in the South Pacific. That’s about 7,000 sea miles without a hitch. We love our Hydrovane and wouldn’t trade it for any other piece of gear on the boat. It is so easy to use that the entire crew, including our 12-year-old son who does his own watches, can command the boat with confidence. With ‘Hydie’ at the helm, we never have to worry.

Along the voyage we’ve met myriad other cruisers with the old fashioned Monitors and other servo windvanes, all of them griping about chafed lines, broken blocks, wobbly courses and exactly which points of sail are worth using them on.

I just have to silently laugh knowing that I have none of those worries. ‘Hydie” has driven us through 45-knot gales never losing her way. On the other end of the spectrum, in the Doldrums recently, floating under bare poles in about 2 knots of wind, the Hydrovane actually held a course through the night. A boat traveling with us (using a Monitor or similar windvane) had drifted 5 miles in the wrong direction by morning.

Fair winds,

Chris Burns s/v Wind Dancer