From: John Kretschmaer
Sent: June 25, 2016
To: Will Curry
Subject: Re: Hydrovane on Quetzal

Will,

So, I must tell you, and I mean this sincerely, the Hydrovane is simply a game changer for Quetzal. It’s just great and performs better than I expected. We’ve now made three passages, St. Martin-Bermuda, Bermuda-Newport, Newport-Bermuda, about 2000 miles, with varying weather, from calms to Force 8/9, and the HV has done almost all the steering.

Quetzal is a good sailing boat, often topping 9 knots but the HV handles her very well. It steers like a human, lifting a bit in the puffs, easing in header, always finding her way back to the course line. And now that I have LED lights, and an efficient fridge, we’re liberated from motoring just to charge the batteries to run the autopilot. The solar array keeps up now.

One other feature of the vane that I really appreciate is that it eases the load on the rudder and rudder bearings. Quetzal was built in 1986 and I just did a big rudder job, rebuilding the rudder and changing the bearings, a big job. But by keeping the wheel locked, the rudder bearings have been loading on these recent passages, which is just fine with me. Also, I don’t feel the need to upgrade the autopilot now, the old one is working fine and not being used very often on passage.

I added a bit of weight, a zinc as you suggested and that took care of most of the humming and vibration. The truth is, now I don’t even notice it, and I don’t really care because the vane does its job so well. In three days my wife Tadji and I are sailing from Bermuda back to Martha’s Vineyard, just the two of us, and knowing that we have the Hydrovane takes a lot of anxiety away.

We took some good pictures, I think, of the vane in action on the last passage and as soon as I receive them, (one of the crew was the best photographer) I will shoot them off to you.

All the best,

John

www.yayablues.com

Sent from my iPhone

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