From: Chris Mennem
Sent: February 29, 2016
To: Will Curry
Subject: Hydrovane endorsement

Dear Will,

I don’t think that I have ever written to a company before, to endorse a product of theirs, but my wife and I have been so impressed with the Hydrovane that I wanted to let you know this.

We ordered the unit in January 2015, and it was quickly delivered to our winter base in Sicily, in strong, well-designed shipping boxes. I found it straight forward to mount on the back of our Jeanneau 45.2, with the help of your simple and clear instructions. I was immediately impressed with the quality and engineering of the Hydrovane, and my respect for it has grown with each passage we have done.

We left Sicily in May 2015, and worked our way to Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, the Cape Verde islands, Barbados and currently St. Lucia, from where I write this in late February 2016. With every passage we were able to use it more, and on the Atlantic passage, it steered us perfectly for over 90% of the trip. On one occasion we were wing-on-wing for over 8 days, with winds to 30kts, at about 150° apparent, with waves big enough to surf down, and the Hydrovane coped perfectly all this time – absolutely amazing!

With just two of us on board, I wanted a system that was simple and effective to operate, and it has exceeded my most optimistic expectations by a considerable margin. It truly is our third crew member.

On a separate note, I wanted to show you the vane mounting bracket I designed and had made. Somehow I got the measurements wrong and the vane, when mounted on top of the unit, fouled the arch. Having spoken to you, I did not want to make the vane smaller, and therefore came up with the bracket, which lowers the vane by 230mm/9’’ and now clears the arch, regardless of articulation or direction of the vane. The bracket had to lower the vane to one side, so this had to be counter-balanced on the opposite side. I have used zinc anodes and stainless washers to obtain perfect static balance and intend to tidy this up and make it more attractive now I know it works – perfectly! The design was a bit tricky, to ensure that it cannot foul any part of the Hydrovane itself, but I think it looks ok and, most importantly, as I mentioned earlier, it works 100% – all the way across the Atlantic. I just thought you might be interested, if you have not seen this done before.

Thanks again for your advice whilst we were mid-Atlantic.

Warm regards,

Chris Mennem

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