From: Gerry May
Sent: July 18, 2014
To: ‘Will Curry’
Subject: Hydrovane comments & pix

Hi Will,

It was good to meet up with all of you at Hydrovane yesterday. Thanks for the spare rudder pin… always good to have one of those, just in case.

I wanted to share with you my first impressions of the Hydrovane which we were able to employ for most of the stretch between the Aeolian Islands (NW of Messina Strait) to Cagliari, Sardinia.

In a word, fantastic… with sails and the boat’s rudder in trim, it was dead simple to engage and adjust, achieving a stable helm almost instantly. We were in relatively flat water with 12-14 knots at 100-110 degrees apparent, so perhaps these gentle conditions helped to shorten the learning curve. Even so, I was amazed how easy it was to experiment with different vane angles and ratio knob positions to find the groove, so to speak. We settled on the most sensitive ratio knob position with an almost vertical vane in these conditions. I found the gentle rocking motion of the vane to be almost hypnotic… what an amazing piece of engineering!

I have attached a few pictures.

Cheers, Gerry

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