From: Palma Maritime Marco
Sent: July 13, 2014
To: Will Curry

Hi Will,

I have successfully installed the Hydrovane and have used it several times now. It´s an amazing unit, which is very easy to use. I do have 2 questions though, which hopefully you can shed some light on.

1. What is the function that you can tilt the vane back?? When would u use that? I can´t really find much info on it.
2. Sailing into a straight-ish line seems difficult: I have been trying the 3 different “gear” settings and it doesn’t seem to make much difference which I use, but there is quite a sway from a straight line at time. I suppose my type of boat is relatively “nervous” when it comes to wind gusts and the hydrovane just doesn’t react as quick as an electric autopilot, but sometimes the sway of the straight line is like 15 degrees either end, which seems a lot to me.

Any thought in that?

Thanks and with best regards

Marco

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From:Will Curry
To: Palma Maritime Marco
Sent: July 15, 2014

Hi Marco,

Good to hear you got your Hydrovane installed.

The vane axis inclination is used to reduce the sensitivity of the vane in heavy weather. For most conditions you shouldn’t have to use this. You only want to incline the vane when it appears to be over steering.

You should be able to get the vane to steer a straighter course. Most of the time the issue is with getting the boat properly balanced before engaging the vane. When you lock off the wheel the boat has to want to track straight. Poorly trimmed sails or an unbalanced sail configuration can make it difficult for the vane to steer. When going downwind a pole on the genoa is mandatory. What points of sail and conditions have you been using the vane in?

Our Boat was a Beneteau first 405 that we sailed to Australia and would have similar sailing characteristics to your Jeanneau with a fin keel and spade rudder. Once we got the sails balanced we could normally keep our course deviation within 5-10 degrees which in most cases was better than the autopilot. It steered us 95% of the way across the Pacific.

…

Best Regards

Will

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From: Palma Maritime Marco
Sent: July 30, 2014
To: Will Curry
Cc: John Curry
Subject: Re: Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 40 – Cracked it!

Basically I have to reef a little quicker than hand held steering. I was veering approx 20 dgrs again on the hydrovane in 12-13 knots of wind (I normally start reefing a first reef in the main at 14 knots). So put in one reef in the main and all went perfect straight away. No more than 5 / 6 dgrs veering either side. So all happy! I have to start thinking a little more in cruising terms instead in fast, faster, fastest. Will take some getting used to!!

Best regards

Marco

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From:Will Curry
To:’Palma Maritime Marco’
Sent: July 31, 2014
Subject: RE: Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 40

Hi Marco,

Good to hear you are getting to know your new crew member. We had lunch on Monday with Jeanne Socrates (just completed her third circumnavigation) and we were talking about off-set installations. I mentioned the effect when boats are healing and her response was “no boat should be healing.” It always amazes me that when you reef early there is generally very little loss in boat speed and the boat is more comfortable. We had at least one reef in our mainsail the whole way across the Pacific and we still had multiple 180 mile days

Anyway, thanks for keeping us posted.

Best Regards

Will

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